


Labyrinth of Blood and Silver Scales

by AsunderWolf



Category: Gehenna: The Final Night, Mage: The Ascension, Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game), White Wolf Lore, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Blood, Blood Drinking, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Other, Period-Typical Racism, Time Loop, Time Travel, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-11 16:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15320040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsunderWolf/pseuds/AsunderWolf
Summary: The past, the present, and the future of Beckett. When Gehenna seems to be more real than just a myth and the Lilith's children make their presence in this new apocalyptic reality.The fic contains extracts of the Book of Nod and Revelations of the Dark Mother, Seed from the Twilight Garden; both books are part of the collection of World of Darkness by The White Wolf.[Fill based fic, with slight canon variations mixing both universes: Vampire the Masquerade and Mage: The ascension. It also makes reference to the following books/games:  Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines- , Mage: The Ascension, Gehenna: The Final Night, and Victorian Age Trilogy 3: The Wounded King. In any case, all concepts used here can be easily understood with a fast check in White Wolf Wiki.]





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fist Warning:  
> Yes, I wanted to mix both universes: Vampire the Masquerade and Mage: The ascension. It's dangerous, indeed.
> 
> If you only played Vampire The Masquerade -bloodlines-, you will find a bit strange some parts of this fic, related to Paradox space-times that can be found usually in Mage: The ascension. These are realms that Mages go into when they abuse their powers in changing the reality . You may always use White Wolf Wiki to go into some concepts such as avatar, paradox, and the Hollow Ones. 
> 
> However, I’m not strongly guided by the core books of those role games anyway, so I will take my licenses here and there.

_My hunger is eternal_

_and I devoured myself_

_to sustain myself. (1)_

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Somewhere. No time.  
The end of the beginning. **

 

He breathed in then breathed out. His eyes opened, and the greenish white energy coming from his iris faded away slowly with the passing by minutes. Breathe in. Breathe out.

A sharp pain spread over his left side of the face. His arm was stiffen, fingers almost impossible to move, familiar feeling of thousand needles stuck into his skin. Oh, he was always aware of the consequences of changing a world reluctant to believe. He could not complain about it. He chose his actions knowing what was at stake and knowing its cost.

His sight focused on, and shapes abandoned their blurry contours to become more defined.

He finally could distinguish his home's ceiling, that home where time had stopped centuries ago and somehow he could find peace and clarity of mind. It was, probably, the only place in all the worlds where he could think in present without getting confused. It was the only place where he could sound clearly. From all places where to end, his powers decided the only one where his pain could be eternal.

He sighed, and the same sharp pain spread over his face hit his lungs, deeply, between his ribs.

He groaned. Tears of pain jumped off from his closed tight eyes. Pain everywhere. Was it so bad?. Had he abused too much of the impossible? Would it mean that he had succeed, after endless tries?. Or had it been a delirious dream born from the pain of the scales?.

Oh, it had been so long since he had put that naive thought in his mind. The thought that changing an impossible was worth any price. Now, laying on the floor, enduring that pain cracking every corner of his body, he could notice the doubts flying freely. And he could also feel the exhaustion. Not mere tiredness. It was an ancient exhaustion that lasted centuries. Although he could not believe how far he had reached. It had been centuries of trials and errors, of erasing mistakes, of trying to shift more or less the circumstances. But it had always the same outcome. There was only one world where everything could be aligned to succeed. Has he finally found it?

His thoughts coukd not be gathered because the pain was always breaking them. Oh, the unbearable pain digging deep in his guts, in his lungs, in his eyes.

The pain was terrible. Was his body simply falling apart, impossible to absorb the cost of playing being God for so long?.

So, so much pain.

 

He opened his eyes once again, and the greenish foam emanating from them disappeared. What time was it now?.

He tried to sit, taking support from the leg of the table where he used to work while drinking calmly a warm tea. Ah, those times had finally ended.

He cried when bending his body caused a hollow crack sound along his abdomen. He did not need to see it. That had been bad. He felt it stiffen, as much as his left hand. He hugged the leg of the table and kept working on breathing, feeling claws in his insiders with the slightest movement.

Would someone come? Could anyone come?. Was he going to leave finally this senseless existence in the same way he had lived all his life? In absolute loneliness. Why he did not died in that forest, between gentle arms?. Curse his unstable and exhausted powers.

His right leg, or what remained of it, was numb. He touched his hip under the clothes and smirked. All covered with scales. Those damned silver scales.

He rubbed his forehead against the leg of the table. To defy the natural order always implied a high price to pay. No. His head shook before such nonsensical concept. 'Natural order' was a thing. 'Massive consensual nonsense'? It was another thing, and it was exactly _that_ what was killing him.

Reality and Nature were more complex than any creature’s ken could grasp. People preferred to believe in false, ridiculous, and oversimplified structures. It was pathetic to think that such mutilated idea of the world was what has been killing him for centuries, slowly. Just a lie, a concept conceived and supported wrongly by everyone, a consensual distortion of the world, a convenient falsehood for everyone to live comfortable in their narrowed, stupid lives. What a world.

He breathed calming his rage.

At least he could save something, someone. He could give something that he was tired of having. Time.

He thought in that man; his friend, his strange, peculiar friend. That confusion in his amber eyes. So beautiful amber eyes that had lost that warm colour centuries ago in favour to free the Beast in his own body.

He smiled, giving away his energies, sliding to the floor again.

Had Beckett believed in him in the very last?. No. He did not. He was dying because nobody believes in impossible.

For what mattered now…

Breathe in. Breath out.

The door opened and a presence entered. Maybe it was the new owner of this house. Maybe it was one of the Hollow Ones that came to put an end to him, to cut a loose-end. For what mattered. He was done. He closed his eyes and let his last breath out.

 

* * *

 

 

**England, outside Bristol city. 1820.  
The Hollow Ones I **

 

It was midnight. The full moon was high up in the sky, which made Beckett extremely nervous. These lands, far away from Bristol City, were full of aggressive werewolves that loved to attack anyone who dare roam freely. Especially a vampire.

Beckett did not bother to walk these lands in his wolf form. There was no way to blend with the background. Werewolves were going to smell him miles ago. Despite the danger, he kept walking into the forest, following the instructions that a Malkavian acquaintance had giving him a couple of weeks ago.

 _This place is brilliant. Knowledge rests. Wild, unrestricted, lewd knowledge._ The woman had said while touching repeatedly her own fingers, as if her hands were not hers.

Now he was in middle of the night, deep into the forest, with a high chance of ending surrounded by werewolves, so he had no time to think about that maybe, just maybe, following a Malkavian’s advice had not been a smart move. But he only could blame Anatole. During all those centuries, he always found sense in his friend's words which revealed deep meaning if listened carefully. It seemed that his trust in this friend’s ability to provide wise advise had been projected to all his kind.

After half an hour of walking, a dark cave embedded into a hill stood out from the general landscape. This was supposed to be where this new association, quite illegal everywhere, were gathering monthly.

This Malkavian acquaintance told him that it was an association made basically of hedge human mages. Some rumours could go further and assured that it had any kind of member: vampires, werewolves, faeries, even mummies. This diversity was hard for Beckett to believe. But he was confident in uncovering the mystery at the end of the night. How could it be difficult for him to determine if the other person was a human or a werewolf with his extremely sensitive nose?. This was a piece of cake.

Rumours said as well that everyone's identity was always safely kept as a secret in each meeting thanks to magical wall and strange rituals that only Lilith's children performed. To know more than this was impossible. The only thing that was clear about this group was that they were able to provide extremely useful information of almost anything that could be true and real. With such premise Beckett was eager to know what this group had to offer about Gehenna and antediluvians. Any new lead in that direction to understand the true nature and purpose of Kindred was most welcomed .

He walked slowly through the darkness of the cave, sliding his foot before stepping in order to test the ground and to avoid deadly traps. Suddenly, thousands of candles lighted on and blinded him for a couple of seconds.

He had reached a wall with small holes in its surface that allowed him to see beyond. Every hole, however, had a faintly glowing layer. He breathed in deeply, trying to identify the composition of the air, but he only could detect mud, humidity and stale air. Nothing alive or dead was beyond that wall. Unless those layers in the holes blocked the scent.

“Welcome” A soft voice echoed in the cave. Beckett looked at the wall, seeing a small movement through the holes, and smelled once again. Nothing. Now he could understand why nobody could say with certainty who those people were.

He approached a big rock in front of the wall and used it as a chair. “I was expecting better accommodations”. Beckett said as he took a green book from his bag. “I was told that this… kind of society has interesting things to offer. I had this book and I thought-”

“Book? What book? Whose?”

“A blank book. It only has a page written: _bring it to the Hollowness_. It says.” Beckett flipped the book in his hand, not sure what to do with it to verify his words to the stranger. A crushing sound, coming from the bottom part of the wall, ended into a long, book-shaped hole, covered with that glowing layer, of course. “Should I slide it through?”

He awaited an answer that never came. A bit hesitant, he knelt before the wall and slid the book through the hole trying to smell again, to see if he could catch some clue about the nature of the person on the other side. But he could not, it was impossible.

“You brought hollowness but meaning” that soft voice said “You will. Take another book. Words dance, and play with clocks. The minutes will hug you. In the past. I did. Some wise words: Don’t pursue the London woman wearing a year 1850. It’s only ashes burning, escaping from your fingers. Your mind was chained. By them. I’ve seen it countless times.” (3)

Beckett frowned. He did not need to smell in order to know what kind of vampire he was dealing with. That crazy way of speaking was unique. It was Malkavian's. Of course. That made sense. His acquaintance could only know about this odd cave if another Malkavian gave him that information through the so-called Net. Smirking confidently because that mystery had been easy for him to uncover, he reminded to himself about the true reason for contacting this group, and then, he spoke. “I’m researching about old Egyptian Gods. I’m looking for...”

“Don’t go there. If you see the red, don’t go there or accept your fate. And no, you didn’t need what you will be looking for now. Just believe in him. The beast of glowing eyes. Came in a century. Green books. Green things. Not red. Embrace the green ones. They are life. Awoken life.”

As soon as the words finished, a sudden breeze out of nowhere blew across the place, extinguished the candles, and the glowing holes of the wall disappeared with the voice and the presence. Blinking in surprise, Beckett tried to remember the last words. _Embrace the green. They are life. Awoken life._ He snorted. Was that a sort of vegetarian suggestion?. Damned Malkavians.

 

* * *

 

**Somewhere out of Time.  
Out.**

 

A big blank sheet is displayed in an infinite space. A man floats in front of it, reading in silence. Words glow in green, burn into the page until finally turns dark and legible.

 

 _B_ _eing old and still young is an alienating experience. Memories mix one another, blend into tales that are hard to distinguish from real fragments of life truly lived. What was past is now a strange dream fading in the darkest corner of the mind, a dim image in which nothing happening there seems to be what one has passed through. At some point, the desires of what one wished to live and what one truly did are the exactly same thing._

_I barely can remember my father, my mother... did I have some siblings?._

_We were eta. I was. In blood and flesh. The putrid smell of leather, the dirty hands, the empty belly, the pain in bare feet._

_Burakumin is the only word craved into my mind. Burakumin. A word that lasted centuries or years. Or maybe just days. Hard to say. But it is all what is left._

_Maybe this kind of magic harms the brain, makes it decay. Slowly but unavoidably._

_I can't remember why or how I went to Italy... and then to England... and then... Oh, well._

_There are some few mixed things that remain in my mind during the first two hundred years. The only sentiment that seems to be perpetual is the one in which I'm always in an empty room, alone. It's loneliness. Unchangeable. Permanent. Boring._

_Living through the Time, out of the Time, over the Time is a lonely experience. And such loneliness devours the delight in the sounds of laughters, the pain embodied into tears , the anxiety in a beating excited chest. Everything simply goes grey, empty, lifeless. Everything follows the same dark lugubrious cycle._

_Companionship in this Hell feels an impossible , forbidden desire. Who would follow you to the void itself?. Who would colour your grey landscape without rewards?_

_Maybe I just lost my mind spread all over the times and the spaces._

_Maybe I'm simply insanity._

_What time is it?. What day we are in?. Now. Yesterday. Tomorrow. All the same._

 

* * *

 

**Book of Revelations of the Dark Mother. Sometime.  
A page.**

 

_I raised a garden out of emptiness_

_and fruit from barren soil._

_In my mantle of the night_

_I swept across it and watered it with blood._

_Ahi hay Lilitu_

_I raised a garden out of emptiness_

_and fruit from barren soil._

_[...]_

_In the Formless Lands I wandered_

_in the days before the garden,_

_purged from the lands of the One Above_

_and cast into the friendless waste._

_My blood hung sweet upon my lips_

_in the days before the garden,_

_and I wept for the home I had left behind_

_with eyes as dry as sand_

_and the sun burned at me._

_And the wind tore at me._

_And the rocks cut my flesh._

_And the water was denied me,_

_save that which I drew from within myself._

_So blasted, bare and desolate was this Land_

_in the days before the garden,_

_that no beast could attend me_

_not Owl, nor Cat, nor Serpent._

_My voice was lost in emptiness._

_Ahi hay Lilitu_

_My voice was lost in nothing._

_Yet the garden grew within me_

_a swelling belly ripe_

_with seeds of stolen fruit_

_and their lingering bitter taste._

_For there are no fruits so sweet_

_as those which burn._

_Ahi hay Lilitu_

_My pain made me a mountain._

_It burned me into ashes_

_and from ashes I arose. (1)_

 


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past, the present, and the future of Beckett. When Gehenna seems to be more real than just a myth and the Lilith's children make their presence in this new apocalyptic reality. 
> 
> The fic contains extracts of the Book of Nod and Revelations of the Dark Mother, Seed from the Twinlight Garden; both books are part of the collection of World of Darkness by The White Wolf.
> 
> [Fill based fic, with slight canon variations, mixing both universes: Vampire the Masquerade and Mage: The ascension. It makes reference to Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines- , Mage: The Ascension, Gehenna: The Final Night, and Victorian Age Trilogy 3: The Wounded King. In any case, all concepts used here can be easily understood with a fast check in White Wolf Wiki.]

**USA. Santa Monica. 2004.**

**The sarcophagus.**

 

Beckett swore he had returned that book decades ago to those strange creatures of the hedge group.  It was silly to keep that blank book for so long, wondering what it was about. The book had only blank pages, with a simple, not-so-clear message. B _ring it to the Hollowness_ . 

Now, while looking for more information about the antediluvian in his personal old libraries spread all over the world, he found that book once again. He even considered that  maybe , decades ago, he had given it back to the Hollow Ones; so this one was a copy he was not aware he had made. It was the only explanation why a book identical to the one he remembered to give back was in his bookshelf. 

Stil hesitating, he opened the book. It was the same: a green cover book full of blank pages. He performed some humble spells on it, to see if there was some secret in it, some hidden words that only through a proper conjuration would arise. But there was nothing. The book simply had appeared and now it was a good excuse to seek the group and ask them some other issues.

Sadly, he was not living in England any more, but in USA. He had been there for a while, outside the cities, reading in secret libraries and researching the rumours that had reached his ears: an antediluvian sarcophagus was going to disembark soon. There were good books that could contain relevant information about any hint of such precious antique, but sadly, the majority of the most important ones had become ancient reliquaries displayed in museums, absolutely useless, badly conserved after the dark times with the inquisition and its blasted bonfires.

Therefore, the Hollow Ones was a good source of forbidden or almost extinct information, so he had to reach them once again. If there were a chance to find one of those antediluvian books, it was going to be through the mysterious group.

He left the basement of an old shack he was inhabiting in the woods and headed to the main city with the unwritten green book in his bag.

He talked with some local vampires to find the hideout of the secret group. It took him a while to find a Nosferatu --of course it had to be one of them, it could not be other way-- who offered him such information.

The Hollow Ones were on an extremely low profile, lower than usual, because a new organization, born from these modern times, claimed that magic and supernatural events were dangerous and vicious; and like a cancer, they had to be destroyed along with any group that embodied them. This new organization claimed to be the owners of the only one truth, full of science adepts and zealots of human knowledge, and swore an oath of fighting against any mystical creatures. Like the rivalry between the Camarilla and the Sabbath, the same seemed to happen between those mage rebels and this organization which denied the existence of everything but science.

With such silent war going on, no wonder everyone he asked to wanted not to be involved.

“Could a Kindred be part of such group?” Beckett asked to the Nosferatu, losing a bit of his patience with so many excuses from everyone. He had decided to change his strategy, avoiding to ask for the group per se, and displaying an interest of being part of it. And it worked.

The deformed vampire laughed, and after a moment of consideration, he pointed Beckett towards the right direction: an old abandoned warehouse close to the docks.

He went following the instructions he had received: the third building, a lid on the floor, the first part of what was supposed to be sewers under construction abandoned long ago, and finally a long corridor towards a room with some chairs facing a wall. That wall was dark and had small holes on its surface --they were not bigger than the size of his fist--which were covered by a glowing layer. He had found the place, no doubts.

He sat in a chair, put the green book on the floor and slid it to the other side of the wall as the hole changed its shape slowly, adopting the book's. “I’ve brought this. I thought I had given it to your group decades ago… but it appeared once again among my things.” The other side was silent. He only could hear the sound of the book's sheet.

“Hollowness. Green.” The voice on the other side echoed after a while. 

“Your people told me to give you green books… hope I didn’t misunderstand it... You are not the most describing people I've met.”

“Decades ago? You say?”

“Yes”

The book was slid back to him, and the voice continued. “Follow the pattern. Don’t break it. Need it. Bring the book, in a century, or no… maybe decades ahead. Or just in a couple of days. What time is it?.”

Beckett frowned as confused as that voice, while picking the book and opening it to see if something had been added.  _Received twice_ was written on a page after the first message. “It must be past midnight.” he said closing the book.

“No. Day. Year.”

“July 9th, 2004”. 

“What time is it?” the voice repeated with surprise. 

“July 9th, 2004. You asked twice”. 

For a moment there was no more than silence. He was sure that the other person was on the other side because those glowing layers coming from the wall holes did not flickered a bit. He kept wondering if this organization of Hollow Ones were mainly compounded by Malkavians. They all sounded alike no matter what country he was in. Thinking about it, it was just right to assume such thing… could not be a more suitable name for a big organization of rebel Malkavians?. But rebels against what?.

He sighed, putting the book once again in his bag. “There is a rumour these days. About an antediluvian sarcophagus coming here. What do you know about it?”.

The sound of something like a stick against the floor followed the echoey voice,  “ Let me see tomorrow. Or maybe in a a week. Perhaps a month. I’ll try.”

Becket frowned. For God’s sake, what kind of answer was that?. “I need to know anything, now.”

“Lies. But Gehenna is not. I’m tired of failing you…. Would this time work?. Promise me to keep the book. The handkerchief. The sunglasses.”

“I’m not… sure what are you talking about.”

“Promise. I promise you. This will be the last time. I’m being eaten alive.”

Suddenly, the glow in the wall disappeared and only a general hum and a soft scent of jasmines left. The voice and its presence had vanished. And Beckett remained there, in the darkness, with more questions than answers.

 

* * *

 

**England. Forgotten Cave in York. 1707.**

**The endless nightmare.**

 

He had been in that cave for many years, just looking at the darkness when the hungry was not strong enough to force him to leave looking for a prey. It was hard for him to discern if he was human, animal, or something else. Although reality was quite clear about that matter, and denying it was an act of insanity, he tried to keep thinking of himself as a human. Abandoning his last bit of humanity was unthinkable. It was all he had now, that last piece of dignity, of nostalgia, of self-control. However, everyday was becoming harder and harder to believe in his humanity. Let alone to preserve it.

After the accident, or whatever it had been, he developed an habit. When the hunger was controllable, and looking at the same point in the wall for days turned impossible to bear, he started to leave the cave and wander through the forest at midnight. The frequency of these adrift walks increased over time to become an everyday practice. Every roam was a ritual that led him to the cursed place where all this nightmare had began. The river, the abandoned tent that was now ragged fabric hung from bushes, that circle of mushrooms.

He remained in silence, observing the place over and over, remembering his movements, the chase, the pain in his body. It was as if he were watching it all over again, but in every recollection he realized the same: despite everything that happened, his mind -or what left of it- was still his own, his memories and past were his, nobody or nothing was going to take them away from him, as well as his endless craving for his old and alive self. Grieving for himself was strange, yet needed. Who would do it if it were not him?.

In those night explorations, he gathered all the instruments and tools that he had left in the tent that terrible night: A book of myths, ink, paper, binoculars, candles, and a green book with blank pages he had started to use as a journal, reporting in it all his discoveries, thoughts, and conclusions. Now, it was full of his writings. And useless for anyone. He took all those small scraps of his previous life and hoarded them in the cave. There was not much use for them but sometimes they helped him to focus and to pretend that the hunger was not becoming unbearable. When that evil presence inside his own mind tempted him to take over his will, he remained in a corner of the cave, with these objects, reading, observing them, remembering how much joy they used to provide him, so much pleasure in reading, in knowing, in understanding a world which it was supposed to be complex but comprehensive.

The irony of the situation made him miserable but strong enough to keep that hunger at bay. Or so he believed. Maybe he did not want to admit that despite those anchors, he always lost control after days of starvation, and awoke with bloody hands and a foul taste in his mouth.

 

That time was not different. Hunger was growing fast, and even though he was trying to focus his mind on the objects, the hungry anguish was too intense to endure. He stood up, leaning his weight against the wall and observed his hands. Or what was supposed to be hands, now a paw with claws and fur. During such contemplation, he realised that he had stopped breathing for days. It was not something that surprised himself per se, he knew that breathing was useless, but it was part of the tiny details he wanted to keep in order to preserve his humanity. Now, he was forgetting to maintain them. Anger stroke him, so he hit and scratched the wall with his claws, furious of his negligence.

When the episode ended, and his head hung tired, looking down, another wave of anger washed him once again when he saw his legs. Or what was supposed to be legs. They were deformed extensions that bended in inhuman ways, almost dog-like, fully covered in fur and finishing in claws. His deformed body was a constant reminder of how doomed he was. It was clear, more than ever, that gods were nowhere to be found.

He was so tired of this bestial existence. There was no rest at all, because every second of consciousness was always endangered by the Hunger, that evil presence in the back of his mind, lurking around in order to attack at his weakest moment.

Exhausted, he fell on the ground and grabbed his own head between his claws, closing tight his eyes. How long he had to endure that madness? To control that beast?. That predatory presence growing out of control. Red, wild eyes opened in his mind, staring at him, submitting him, devouring him.

He screamed, in a vain attempt to scare that evil presence, but he only offered to it a weakness that such rotten entity could exploit to take him over. And so it did. For a second, he stopped feeling his body, and became a prisoner in his own flesh. He knew what was going to be next; to wake up days later into a more deformed and twisted body whose mouth was going to be drooling blood. He clenched his teeth and with all the strength of his body and will, he hold himself against the wall. And for a second, he won over the Beast.

He panted heavily.

How low and deep he had fallen. Edward Warren, from respectable professor in the well-known Oxford academy to this twisted abomination. His old self had defied the university structure, and had questioned all its nonsensical support of <scientific> explanations about mythical creatures. He had also spat on fellows that claimed not only to know about these fantasy creatures but also to have the right of writing hundreds of books and essays to hide the current unknown reality with popular superstitions covered by the sophisticated mantle of objectivity. Edward did not want to be part of that charade, and rejected several honour titles given by the institution as a bribe to keep him quiet, but he could not stand for his colleagues believing in children’s stories.

But now… now... Where would he put his pride? How could he accept that everything had always been true?.

If he could return time back, to advice his old self, to make him stop, to make him know… ah. But there was no turning back. The only thing he could do was to return to that cave every early morning, wishing for a future self-control that he did not have yet.

He missed himself. His calm mind, his ability to actually control his own body…. Well, his own body too. He lamented while observing his finger-claws and coarse fur on the back of his hands. So much wrongness was contained now in his flesh.

 

His self-loathing thoughts were stopped when a black wolf appeared at the entrance of the cave. The creature sat on the ground and observed him with a snarl. There was something special about it, something intelligent shining in its pupils. The animal evaporated into a thick, black mist and resumed its human form, standing with a prideful demeanour. The only parts that were not changed where his wolf-like legs and hands.

“What… are you?” Edward said, pressing his back against the cave’s wall. 

The human remained quiet for minutes. Eyelids and chest as still as a painting.  “ You have done well all these years...” Edward frowned at him. “you are made of tough material, my dear, and I’m glad to welcome you to our pack….”

Long furious fangs emerged from Edward's lips. He was once again at the edge of losing control but this time not because the Hunger but the anger. “Pack?”,? he growled.

“I know this must be confusing, but I’ve selected you a couples of years ago, to be part of our-”

Edward could not hold back the fury and the hardly contained Hunger any longer. Even though he did not allowed the creature to finish his sentence, he could understand what had happened. The fairy tales were true, after all. And he was going to stop all that madness in that exact moment.

He turned into a more deformed beast and jumped onto the man, digging his fangs on his throat. Blood poured profusely, drinking it by blind reflect of his current nature. It tasted horrible but he could perceive its dark tempting power. He was decided to drain the creature, but his intentions lasted a blink. Furious, the creature threw him against the wall, changing back to his animal shape, and attacked him with a mastery in his movements that made Edward realize that he had not a chance.

Fangs and claws ripped Edward’s flesh, pain spread all over each fibre of his muscles while blood soaked him all. It was so brutally fast. With a last shake, his body fell on the ground, bleeding, hurting, being consumed by an increasing Hunger and a deep frustration. And as sudden that attack was, so it was his blindness. Everything turned deep black and sounded far away.

“You are now part of the proud Gangrel. We don’t care about rules much, but there is one that you, and everyone, must respect: never attack your elders. Never. ” 

Still on the ground, blind and severely wounded, Edward found enough strength to say what he thought were going to be his last words, “I care not a beard-splitter thing about your bedswerver breed. Return me back to what I was. Give me back my life.”

The monster snarled his laugh. “There is no turning back. Unless you can control time" he laughed again "You are dead now. And you are my childe, so give me a damned bit of respect.”

Leaning against the wall, helping himself to stand up, Edward moved his head in direction of the sound and frowned. He did not want to respect the assassin that had done this to him. There was no obligation to do so. Fury and hunger awoke his blind eyes in red glow. If there was no way to recover his former self, if he was now a damned, bloody creature half demon, half animal, he was going to kill the one responsible of such atrocity. Just to be sure no one would pass through this ever again. He was about to do the last useful and human sacrifice.

And so he did. He set the beast free. Unfortunately, he did not lose his consciousness as usual, not totally, and was aware of the whole transformation process: a sharp and deafening high pitch in his ears, a pain ripping apart every muscle transforming it, increasing its size, bending it in twisted ways, getting stronger than any human could ever be. He became the Beast, and attacked that man who had called him his childe. The hits and bites and snarls grew with the pain and blood.

The most intense memory he had of the moment, or maybe just after it, was the agony, the painful deformation of his body, the anguish of descending to the most bestial form, the final loss of his humanity. And when such realisation stroke him, blood tears ran through his cheeks. He had been fighting for so long in that cave to keep any bits of humanity, all that effort, that self-control had been in vain. But at least, he thought, he would make it count.

With teeth exposed in a snarl, Edward jumped against the other beast, and fought entangling each other in a violent dance, tearing apart their flesh, clawing and bleeding and smashing . This fight was to death or... Something else.

Suddenly, everything went quiet. With a violent acid taste of blood in his mouth and the defeated feeling of more blood pouring from every wound of his body, Edward fall over. He did not know if he had won. Probably not. But he did not care either. At least everything had ended, nothing mattered any more.

There was just a stressful peace, a calm proper of a preamble of a catastrophe. Maybe finally this was the end. The oblivion. After all that nightmare, nothingness seemed a reward more than a traumatic thought. He had learnt through the hard way.

Darkness surrounded him while a scent of jasmine reached his sensitive nostrils, and an apathetic soft drum echoed in his ears. The whole atmosphere stimulated his hunger, somehow. But he had no strength to even open his eyes. He felt hands on his wounds, removing the bloody ragged clothes and cleaning then with gentle touch. Was the man that had turned him into this monster the one who was healing him now?. No. It could not be. He did not want him to be.

_Over and over again, and I can never prevent it. I'm sorry._

He listened a soft voice near, while some wounds closed in. And when the thirst was putting his mind into deep discomfort, he tasted blood in his mouth. A delicious blood. A blood he had not being fed in the forest because clearly it was not from any animal... But a human. A taste so unique and a pleasure so deep that calmed the Beast and allowed him to enter into torpor for a couple of months.

 

After a long time, after so much calm, just when he had thought that he could finally reach eternal peace, he woke up. He looked around. Blood and dirt spread over the ground, his long hair greasy and hard to run his fingers through it, half of his clothes destroyed. No signs of the monster he had fought. He rubbed his face knowing he had been defeated badly, and he was unable to destroy the source of this horror.

Once again the nightmare began, abandoned to his own sick luck, on that cave. The penetrating smell of blood awoke his hunger as well, but somehow it was not out of control. It was just a warning state of mind. At a corner of the cave, out of the blue, a candle lightened with a green magical flame and illuminated a brown bag resting against the wall. He inspected it, finding within it clean clothes and a bottle full of fresh blood. It was unbelievable the rare taste of it. He drank it all at once and looked at the bottle for a while, wondering if that was the taste of human blood. If it was so, he had to become extremely careful if someday he was in front of one, or even worse, alone with one. He blinked, realising he had never blinked since he woke up that night and rolled his eyes in annoyance for his constant neglect.

What was he thinking? That he could live a normal life after overcome trauma?, that he could interact with humans as if he were one?. What if that monster inside him awoke at the worst moments? Was he ready to become a murderous creature?.

He sighed. Oh, he had not sighed until now. More negligences. He pressed his hand on his chest and waited in vain that soft drum that had echoed during his unconsciousness. Then, he looked at his hands and legs. Interacting with humans was certainly and absolutely out of question. He had to get used to that terrible thought, the thought that his life was going to be like this forever, a cave, hunger, and some blind ire here and there. Waiting for more was useless.

Even though it was hard to grasp,there was no use in wasting more time in self-pity, mourning his own self every night. He had to start looking for something else now. Time was not going to be a problem, if legends and myths were true, so he would have time enough to think and to reflect on his condition.

He took the bag with new clothes, and by instinct, the book, paper and ink. He looked at these elements and decided to keep the green book only, throwing the rest. His twisted hands were now incapable of writing. There was not certainty about how much of his previous self he would be able to save. But he had to try. Once again.

He went out of the cave. The sun would raise after six or seven hours. He did not know how he was sure of it, but he was. With the few belongings in his claws, he left the cave and walked towards the river. He did not need to see where he was going, after so many years walking the same paths night after night, the direction of the river was as natural as his unbreathing body by now.

Along the way he started to laugh. And to sigh and blink and force breathing in and out. They were useless, but those things were at least, things he could still do. Things he could control at will. Yet.

How many years had passed since that traumatic night? How long would it take for him to forget how to blink, how to breath, how to yawn, how to laugh?. That was not going to hapoen. He was determined to keep as much as possible his old self. That self who, ironically, despised people who believed in myths of monsters.

Soft sweet irony.

At the river he took his clothes off and cleaned his horrible body. It was pale and smooth, and he felt almost no discomfort in submerging it into icy water. He could feel cold, but there was no reaction, no trembling, no unease. He sighed, in vain attempt to foce resignation into his mind. Nothing was the same since he was not alive any more.

He laughed again, suddenly, this time maniacally, wishing to choke, but unable to force it. Laughing without breathing was uncomfortable, even empty. There was not need to stop, to gather air, to wipe out the non-existent small tears jumping from the corner of his eyes. It was an endless artificial shake in his chest that lost purpose. It was absolutely evil. But still, he was going to insist. He had to. It was all that left of him, the small details that kept him huma-.

He stopped his laughter and became as steady as he was before, barely feeling the water run around his naked body. Yes. He was going to do it despite the apparent futility. He was going to protect those small pieces of an illusion living in a dead body. At least for his own memory sake, for what he had been, for the one he will never ever be. He had to keep them.

 

He reached the edge of the river, sat in the bank and lost his mind in fond and warm memories, while looking at the water. The moon barely illuminated the river's surface, making it look like a silver mantle. Oh, silver, the best element to purify in an alchemist's words.

Clumsy footsteps coming from his back put him in alert. He stood up without effort, and faced the intruder coming from the brushes. Edward displayed his claws, and his deformed legs twisted under the expectation of another new attack. He was now ready to kill the bastard that had done this to him.

But it was not the monster. Instead, a young man with a cane and ragged ancient clothes appeared. The man tripped off close to the brushes and fell. The intruder looked at the half-man half-wolf in front of him, while his face kept immutable. A remnant of green energy was still in his eyes, fading slowly, until it finally disappeared, displaying absolutely normal brown eyes. There was no fear in those eyes, but curiosity. Oh, the memory hit Edward deeply. Was this young man another useless academic going to prove that vampires, werewolves and all those old stories were a mere myth?. Was this young man going to face the same fate that him?. Was he, Edward Warren, going to turn this man in another of his twisted kind? A beast? Just to be sure that other soul would be damned like his?.

"It's you.... " The man whispered trying to get closer of the creature.

Surprised by the forgotten warmth of talking with someone else, of being close to another person, Edward's guard went down abruptly. His claws went inside his fingers, as much as it was possible with such deformed hands, and fell on his kneels. The charm did not last. The young man was not a mere presence. It was blood pump echoing in the night, ragged sound of breath, warmth radiating off his body. The man was alive. A real human. Alive.

The revelation awoke the sudden thirst of the Beast and its imperious demand for satisfaction. His claws emerged once again and run into the man, blindly controlled by his urges. But the man did not move. His eyes flashed in an intense green glow, and for a moment, Edward thought that time had stopped. Or truly was it?.

The next memory he had was a gentle hand over his forehead and a cooling sensation pouring into him, calming the Beast, making it slumber deep deep down in his mind while those green eyes glowed in blue. Edward could finally retract his claws with absolute control.

He observed the stranger. No danger came from him, in fact, there was an aura of familiarity that he could not identify clearly. Or maybe it was just all those years of loneliness and death that made him crave for any kind of human contact.

“What time is it?” the man said slowly. 

"Who knows."

The man looked around, at the sky, and finally at Edward's red eyes. "How long since you were turned into?"

Edward raised an eyebrow. "Do you... Believe in creatures of the night?."

"I  _believe_ not. I  _do_ know. Reality is, by far, more complex and unbelievable than any creature can fathom."

Edward forced a blink of surprise, and answered the initial question of the strange man. "I don't know, it could be years, even decades since I became... This."

"Not helpful."

Edward frowned. "Well. My apologies. I've been a bit busy with death, living in a cave without a proper clock watch . I know that may look irrelevant to you, but certainly this un-life is less boring and quiet than I expected". Edward snarled without threatening, supposedly a smirk.

The man looked at him, silent, trying to realise if that had been a sarcasm or not. Edward had to agree that he was surprised as well. Time turned him and his body into a monstrosity but his acid tongue was there still. Thankfully.

"Well, it seems that it was not long enough" the stranger said as a shadow of a smile curved his lips slightly.

Edward frowned again. “ What do you mean?”

Without looking at him, the man shoved his hands inside his ragged pockets, "I suppose you have a blank book in your possession."

Edward raised his eyebrows. Indeed he had. It was exactly inside that bag on the ground close to the river edge. A book he could not remember how he acquired it, considering how rare was to buy a book full of blank pages that he had used as a binnacle.

“It matters not. Bring this with you. Always. And give it to the first limping man you see. He also must know what this is all about.”

Edward extended his clawed hand and took a green handkerchief. As soon as he did, the man disappeared and only a soft scent of jasmines left.

 

* * *

 

**USA. Hollywood forest. 2005. At night.  
The Hollow Ones II**

 

Beckett walked warily along the forest. It was not too deep or dense, but it was enough to confuse shadows with real figures, a deadly mistake in werewolves lands.

He found the entrance of an old house abandoned at the top of the hill. The cold breeze was making him nervous. Such calm was always a preamble for a disaster.

He rang the bell of the porch and without any invitation he headed inside. It was an empty room with stairs going down into the ground. It was the Hollow Ones' style, always placing their gathering points underground, at a room divided with a big wall which had glowing holes that allowed to see parts of the other speaker while protecting each others' identity.

 

Frustrated for so much effort wasted for so long without finding answers about the antediluvians, Beckett sat on the chair and let a sigh out just to emphasize his tiredness. It had not been a week since the explosion of LaCroix's towers. Now, once again, after years of research, he was at the same starting point, clueless where to go.

The Hollow Ones always knew everything, even though at the time their advice was usually vague and nonsensical. Now, when things finally happened, their riddles seemed to fit. Like Malkavian words. If he needed some guide, he certainly had to talk with them.

“I asked your group, time ago, about the antediluvians.” Beckett started when a shadow of movement was seen through the dim glowing holes

“Let's assume that.”

“I imagine I don't have the pleasure of talking with the same person I did time ago.”

“Likely. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you don't.”

“Is there a way to know it for sure?”

“No”. The voice stopped using his gentle tone and changed into a monotone one. “I’ve heard that the famous sarcophagus you were interested on turned out to be an... explosive surprise”. 

“Unbelievable. I guess even your group has a clown mood sometimes." Beckett snorted, "Yeah, you were right. It has been a bad joke all this time" he forced a sigh, "Now, I'm here to ask you if you know anything about any antediluvian artefact. Or, did you heard anything about Gehen-"

Beckett's words were interrupted by an obstreperous sound of a door being violently opened followed by ominous strides from above. Someone or something was looking for the gathering point of the Hollow Ones without any subtlety.

Suddenly, the door underground blasted against the wall and an enormous werewolf appeared, focusing his attention on the magical wall. With a shamanistic spell reinforcing his claws, the beast destroyed the thick division and walked to the other side, grabbed the man by his clothes, and threw him toward the stairs. The moment was the perfect opportunity for Beckett to see and smell his host. It was a young Asian man, who hurt by the impact, was ungraciously trying to stand up with the help of some stair steps. Beckett frowned. Was that man a twisted vampire of the East with Malkavian features?. His question was immediately answered when the smell of blood hit his nostrils. No. There was no mistake. It was not a vampire. It was a human. A human with a particular tempting flavour of blood. Beckett hissed at the realization.

The werewolf looked at him for a second, time enough for Beckett to prepare his fight stance instinctively, claws naked and muscles highly tensed, ready to jump, flee, or attack. He had to use everything he got. There were few chances for him to leave this place alive when such huge werewolf was blocking the only way out.

However, the werewolf's focus shifted toward the human once more. The man was now sitting on a step, breathing heavily. The impact had still effect on him.

“You said she was in danger!” The werewolf walked aggressively toward the fallen man, and clawed at him but his paw never touch any flesh. In a blink of an eye, the young man appeared on the other side of the room, crawling and breathing now even heavier. Beckett frowned, and for a very little moment, he let his guard off too curious about what had just happened. His eyes could not follow that movement. Had that man a super-speed that was impossible for him, for his own Beast, to perceive?. That was unthinkable. No bloodline had ever reached that skill level. How could he expect that from a mere human?

“I tell you what you will ask me. What you asked me. I told you. You do what you decided to. I will not, was not, am not responsible of your foolish decisions.”

Beckett remained crotched, claws naked, observing the situation with the fine sensitivity of a predator.

Once again the vulpine beast attacked the man, who disappeared just to appear by Beckett's side, startling him. Now he could distinguish it. The man was not moving at all.

“We got a deal. If you refuse to do your part, you’ll force me to...”. The werewolf’s voice echoed in the room while turning over to glare at the human. 

“To what?” the man whispered.

The werewolf jumped again toward the hurt man, catching Beckett in the process, who despite dodging could not avoid the fast movements of those enchanted claws and he was thrown against the wall. The impact was completely absorbed by his legs and arms that bended against the wall before hitting, and fell graciously to the ground like a cat. Wary, Beckett remained crouched just in case. The Beast within was telling him to simply run away, but his curiosity was stronger. It was good to know that some traits were impossible to be altered, vampire or not.

How a werewolf ended in a gathering point of a Hollow Ones? Why that stupid man, whom he had guessed a Malkavian, had done a deal with a werewolf? And about what?. Werewolves hated anything that was unnatural, cursed, or barely foreign. Besides, that man's ability of disappearing got Beckett’s full attention. He thought he had seen everything in his long un-life. That strange man was proving him wrong.

Tired of the situation, the werewolf enlarged his claws even more, prepared to torn apart the man on the ground, but his movement frost. The young man pressed both hands against the floor and his eyes flashed in silver. A thick, cold, sharp air surrounded him and small drops of silver fog started to solidify in the air, shaping themselves into floating bullets.

Silver scales covered part of the walls around them, and some of them appeared on the left side of the young man’s face, uncovered by his hair that was now floating unnaturally. Intense sounds of twinkling bells filled the air.

Beckett focused his attention on that human, who suddenly, looked more dangerous than the werewolf himself.  
Nervous, the werewolf grunted as his last resource for intimidation, but a rain of silver bullets hurt him superficially as a first warning. The beast snarled.

“My patience will have a limit” the human said, white glowing breath emanating from his lips. 

The werewolf observed the silvery environment, then looked at Beckett, and left the place not without a last threat. “I won’t forget this”.

“You will.” the human said.

 

Once the presence of the werewolf disappeared, the silver shards fell on the ground deadly and covered everywhere. All the magical power displayed before shrunk into its source and only a tired man was left.

Beckett stood on his foot, normal stance, and walked towards him warily. The spells preventing the mutual identification were now gone, and his nose could smell all that living blood pumping from the man’s throat, its echo, the smell of human, fresh flesh. He scowled while observing the struggle of the man to stand up.

“Would you mind... my crutches?” The man pointed out on the other side of the room, past beyond the destroyed wall, where a pair of crutches were leaning on the wall. 

Beckett deepened his frown and looked at the man. The Beast was screaming inside to leave the place. But how would he do it? His curiosity was eating him alive. Well, un-alive. “Can’t you get them by yourself?”

“Well. So useful.” The human sighed annoyed, helping himself to stand on one feet by leaning towards the wall. He tried to jump to the other side of the wretched wall, but tripped off due to all the silvery mess spread over the floor, and fell again. He groaned in frustration or maybe in pain. Only then Beckett realised the man had silver scales on the back of his left hand as well, that were now bleeding because the impact of the fall or maybe because they had grown violently during the fight. Either case, those scales pierced the man's skin down into his muscles and when they were close to a joint, it made the movement almost impossible. 

Beckett inspected the man's body, looking with particular attention at the silver ankle that barely could be seen in the sleeve of the trousers. Maybe all his left bodyside was covered with those painful scales. He remembered meeting someone else with a similar malady time ago but could not precise. Probably it had been centuries ago, and that person has been dead long time ago. It was useless to think about it now.  
Fearing a reaction due to the blood, the young man looked at Beckett immediately, covering the wrist with his sane hand.

For some stupid reason, and ignoring the Beast that was telling him to just run away, Beckett remained there and folded his arms. “I’ve already fed. Relax” he said. Although that was true, that blood had a particular strong scent that made it tempting. Something similar to a warm memory, too lost in time, hit his mind. Like a drunk dream, it was too blurry to identify the details.  “ Why are you not doing that thing?. That one about blinking here and there?”.

Surprise on the man’s face lasted a second. He remained silent and tried once again to get up, but this time Beckett simply gave him the chair where he was sitting before the werewolf came.

“You are a human.” Beckett said, walking to the other side of the room and took the crutches. Gently, he offered them to the man. 

“And you a Kindred of Cain.”

“So polite.” Beckett snorted. “There you have such exquisite observation powers." he said pushing his glasses that barely covered his red eyes, showing off his animalistic hand in doing so. "Until now, I thought of you as one of my kind. But... You are a... what?... a mage?. Quite a silvery mage I must say.”

The young man looked down in silence. There was a hint of defeat hard to miss in his ephemeral attitude.

Beckett grinned and looked around. It was a shame to lose the contact of an identified Hollow One. Who would know when and how he could use this group's services again. Or if this event was not going to place his name in a black list, preventing any future contact again. Beckett had to do something. He smirked at the mage, ready to test the ground. “Well. Are there some protocol to follow under these circumstances?. The place meant to keep our identities hidden has been destroyed… and, we know each other now. And our nature.”

The man swallowed, tensed. “I guess this is the end. Such bitter irony. It will be sad, it was sad, it's sad that everything was useless."

Beckett observed him, and then focused on thsat bleeding hand. That smell was becoming more and more distracting. “So… what?. We kill each other?”

“More like one ate the other. Drank the other.” The human said seriously, and Beckett snorted. “I don’t believe a Kindred of Cain could feel the deadly threat in this” He said moving one of his crutches. 

Beckett laughed softly, something that surprised the mage. It was obvious, quite a view to see a vampire laugh. Or chuckle. Or look like a mere human. “Considering you stopped the annoyance that that werewolf could have became for me after killing you, and the interesting information your group has given me over these years… I think we are even.”

“No feed?. Mighty Kindred saw... see a meal in a patronizing way?. Strange times we live in.”

“Indeed.” Beckett grinned, approaching the human. He looked down while the man had to raise his face a little bit to look at him into the eyes. “As a way of payment, because I tell you, being food of someone else is not a spiritual experience-- you should thank me extensively for saving you that horrible feeling--. Would you agree to exchange information with me from now on?. I have some questions that would need answers, and the more I research, the more I will need your knowledge." 

The mage narrowed his eyes, and a shadow of a smile was drawn on his face. "I was pleased. " Beckett blinked, like a teacher blinks at a student when obvious mistakes are made but remains silent to avoid their students' embarrassment. "I'm pleased". He finally corrected himself.

"Very well. So, do you mind if I pay you a visit later?”.

“You didn’t know where I live. You don’t.”

Beckett took the left hand of the man and touched the wound with his claws, gently. Then, he smelled them and his pupils dilated immediately. It was familiar. He was certain of it. Would all mages smell like that? Something fresh and citrus and mint-related with the usual iron taste in the end?. He was tempting to lick his own claw, but  he remembered the Book of Nod, and the warning came to his mind. 

 

_Drink not the blood of the Enlightened,_

_rather listen to their words,_

_watch their actions,_

_and move swiftly against them should they strike:_

_a useful sword, but often too sharp._

 

He looked at the man straight into his eyes and remained silent. The scent of his blood was getting stronger as it was Beckett's desire to drink it. Lost in the passing time, or maybe the time had stopped completely, Beckett's eyes fell onto that bloody hand.

Familiar. It was too familiar. His fangs were unfolded against his will. The Beast within was screaming to leave this place, crazy and mad and at the same time desiring that dangerous blood.

Silently, the man offered his hurting hand. It was a gesture that mesmerized Beckett who, without second thoughts, licked it, drown in such intense scent.

He did not bite. One only lick was enough to hit him deeply. All those flavours he had smelled a moment ago were now intense in his tongue, burning his mouth, tasting as he used to taste English tea, as he used to enjoy sniffing jasmines centuries ago. Such small amount of blood was enough to make him feel his head lighter and experience once again in his un-life the mundane effect of drunkenness. Or at least, as close as a vampire can reach it. Beckett blinked, surprised and overwhelmed.

Could a vampire get drunk of blood? Of this particular blood?. In the end of this exquisite taste, a calmness bathed his soul. He remembered the book of Nod once again and swore at himself. He had to avoid Lilith's children's blood no matter what.

But why had it such effect?. Maybe it was the magick contained in excess in a mage blood. But to think that it would overwhelm a Kindred to the point of satisfaction... Oh, it was so tempting to reach satisfaction of this maddening Thirst even though it could only last for a brief moment. To stop the Beast in the back of his mind, just for a while...

Beckett sighed humanly, recovering control over him, but instead of being upset, a relaxed sensation hitt every corner of his body. Was the Beast gone?. Deeply asleep?. Not forever, of course, but it felt as if tranquillity was going to last for several hours; no anxiety, no soul pain, no fear of awakening a wild Beast. This effect was thrilling. He was not going to forget that blood. "I know how to track you now." He said, keeping all the impact that such lick had to himself, but he could not avoid to wet his lips, still tasting the remnants.

Without saying a word, the young man nodded slowly as he got up once again and walked some steps towards the stair. The limping figure brought Beckett an old memory. "Wait." He said approaching the man." I was told to give you this. If this makes sense to you" he took from an inner pocket of his jacket a green handkerchie f. The mage looked at it with a slight change in his facial gesture, not sure if it was the starting of a smile that died too soon or just a surprise face in an extremely moderate way.

"It makes a lot of sense. Keep it. You'll need it to find me later".

 

* * *

 

**ASU. Dark Room. Somewhere. Somewhen.  
Storehouse of mementos. **

 

With a blink of an eye he appeared in a dark room barely illuminated by a dying lamp hung from the ceiling, mud scent complemented the stale air in there. Nothing could be heard, nothing was moving. All what was there was a deep, lugubrious silence.

Lucca looked around and found a dead body in a corner, lay on its back. He got closer and observed it. The dead had long black hair that was spread wildly around his head, a proof that probably dawn had found him inadvertently, and a book faced down with some pages messily folded, as if it had fallen from above. Lucca sat on the floor with some difficulty, and took the book.  _Gehenna and other myths_ . A book of prophecies for this world, a book that, written in another universe, explained in details how the twisted fabric of time and space shaped our reality.

His attention returned to the dead body. It wore black sunglasses that Lucca removed slowly. He knew the corpse was not going to awake, more than five hours were needed for the night to fall again. He caressed that face, too smooth for being real, too cold for being alive.

He unbuttoned the dead's jacket and searched his inner pockets. This part was the most arduous one. To look for the proof of what universe was this, and then, proceed in consequence.

The search finished when he found a red handkerchief. He looked at the piece of cloth, a bit lost, trembling hands, saying to himself once again that this was necessary. It was what had to be done to, ironically, save the man whom he had been destroying in every different universe.

He caressed that smooth pale face, brushing its dry lips, while some of his silver scales on the back of his own hand shone with the movement. How many times had he been doing this?.

He sighed and closed his eyes, conjuring small drops of silver that floated in the air. Slowly, they crowed together, collapsing one another, forming small clusters of amorphous silver mass that started to spin until shaping into a stake. Lucca took the weapon in his hands and kept it in the air, trying to find the strength for what was going to come.

He aligned the stake over the dead's chest and with a fast movement sunk it into the ribs. The corpse screamed, and his red eyes looked at him, unable to understand this betrayal. Lucca observed the scene, which was normal by now, as the shock in the undead turned into disconcert and then pain and then disappointment. It lasted a fraction of seconds, but it seemed eternal hours for Lucca.

The vampire body turned into ashes... And that was all.

The undead had found his end in this universe.

 

 

 

 

 

Silence.

 

 

 

 

It was all what remained.

 

 

 

 

Lucca always had to take some minutes before jumping into space and time. It was true that over time, after repeating the same murder over and over, his recovery was getting faster. The first time had been so tough. He could not move his legs for hours, afraid that if he was making a mistake and killed the wrong one, everything would have been useless.

But now it was just a matter of minutes.

He caressed the ashes for the last time, took the sunglasses and the red handkerchief, and in the next blink he disappeared.

 

* * *

 

**Book of Revelations of the Dark Mother. Sometime.  
A page.**

 

_As my love carried the sun_

_I met a broken man_

_a farmer with no crops to tend_

_a father without get, a child without sires,_

_and I was amazed, for he bore no signs of godhood_

_but wandered in the dust like a lesser beast._

_He bore the marks of Adam_

_He bore the pallor of Eve_

_He bore the scars of the One Above_

_and he wept, for all these he had lost._

 

_And I pitied him_

_yet I hated him_

_for he bore the scent of Adam,_

_the touch of Eve_

_and the haunted eyes of the One Above._  
  
Caine possessed the mark of death 

_so I took him into my garden and I taught him._  
I taught him lessons of pain  
alone he was, in darkness.

_Although bathe in light, he walked in shadow_

_And wrapped his arms against the cold._

_I took him in with words of succor_

_with words of surcease._

_My eyes pierced the darkness of his torment_

_my voice stilled the cold within his bones_

_and I held him like a child_

_as if he were the son of my birth-mate and myself._

_I wept with him, for he was as my own son  
[...]_

_And he followed me, naked_

_into the garden of Lilith and Lucifer_

_at my feet did Caine of Nod kneel,_

_as he had knelt before the fury of the One Above._

_His eyes could not look upon me,_

_his voice was broken and hollow,_

_and I grew angered at his shameful state,_

_how he cowered before his judgment like a lesser thing._

_For him I made my garden a place of horror,_

_betraying him even as he had betrayed his flesh._

_I gave of my blood and anointed him with it_

_that he might become abomination unto my dwelling._

_And the skies above my garden frowned,_

_and the air was thick with the hiss of Serpent, shriek of Owl, roar of Cat._

“ _Go, Caine of Nod, for this is the garden you have sown,_

_and its fruits you must reap”_

_He stumbled into the garden's depths_

_and I followed, laughing, lashing him with burning brands._

_For many a day and night did I teach him,_

_teach him the secrets of the garden._

_As my thorns rent him,_

_so did his flesh become a net of scars._

_As my vines sought to snare him_

_so did his limbs quicken._

_Caine of Nod learned to hide from the torments of the garden,_

_to know my coming like a wild beast knows its hunter._

_Over the Serpent, the Owl, the Cat he learned dominion._

_And, as he grew strong in agony,_

_pride flashed from his eyes_

_and the fires of my brands blazed from his heart._

_One day, he would flee no more,_

_but stood and let his blood flow about him_

_nurturing my garden._

_And, anointing himself with his blood_

_as I had anointed him with mine_

_he fell into a trance_

_from which I would not awaken him. (1)_

 

 

 


	3. Part 3

**USA, Santa Monica. Again 2005.**

**The visitor.**

 

For a couple of weeks Beckett had no Hungry, and the Beast's presence was quiet. He wondered if human blood would taste the same after such rapture. The thought concerned him; maybe this lack of appetite would increase his will in controlling the Beast or, on the contrary, will break free the savage monster within with stronger thirst when coming back.

Days passed by and the questions raised over and over. Would the effect last longer? Could he find mage blood somewhere to fill his refrigerator? Was this taste going to become an addiction?. Or this was another symptom of Gehenna's times?. Sometimes he did not know what to believe.

But he had more questions than those. In one of his researches, he found an ancient map of a supposed antediluvian tomb which was placed in an ancient plave. To exactly know the corresponding area nowadays was far beyond his expertise, so meeting that mage once again was imperious.

The taste of his blood was unforgettable as it was his smell. It was simply a matter of roaming around the city until finding the first clue to track him down. It could not be much more complicated than that.

But what it was supposed to be an easy tracking ended into madness. Here and there in the city he could find sudden traces of that soft scent, but they lasted a bit, and only around particularly small places. A library, a portion of a park. In the middle of the street. Suddenly, without any transition, the smell disappeared, as if his owner simply vanished into thin air. That was supposed to be a rare quality from certain bloodlines of Kindred. A mage could never have such powers unless... Unless this mage were a ghoul.

He wrinkled his nose in revulsion. That would make much sense, Beckett thought. The man had still his magic, so he was a fresh ghoul but without true freedom of will.

If the man was a Vampire slave with abilities such as disappearing, it had to be related to an independent bloodline, one which hates deeply the big gatherings of people or rules. It had to be an independent branch of Brujah or Gangrel. So that he was tracking in the wrong places.

Beckett left the city and explored the forest that surrounded Santa Monica.

The scent was not easy to follow. However, there was something else pushing him into a certain direction. Something hid in his jacket inner pocket that only hours latter made sense: the handkerchief. The scent stuck in his nose as well as the mesmerized taste in his mouth were mainly triggered by something concealed in that handkerchief. He could not trust in his senses any more, because they were saturated and biased by his memories, but magic was another matter. Magic tracking magic was a piece of cake.

Using some thaumaturgy skills, Beckett placed a precarious spell on the handkerchief that activated a hidden location sorcery which guided his footsteps. In a matter of hours he found himself in front of a door carved on a tree. Unsure of the reality, he placed a cautious hand over the door handle and turned it. What he was expecting to be a fake handle turned into real metal, and the sound of a loud click finished the effect. The door had been opened.

Inside there was a spacious home, with a large living room where a man was sitting in a huge table with books spread all over it. At the corner of the table there was a free space where a set of china was placed and one of the teacup steamed an intense jasmine scent.

The man raised his eyes from a big ancient book and looked up at Beckett. Gestureless face, neither a smile on his lips nor a surprised contraction in his eyes, the mysterious man extended a hand over the free seat as an invitation.

Beckett stepped in cautiously, being startled as the door closed behind him and fused with the wall.

He tried to conceal his fear and looked around for another way out. There were some windows, but none of them showed the same landscape. One had a winter scenery, with a mountain in the background and a dead tree covered in snow close to the glass. Another window displayed a desert suffering a sandstorm. The last one, behind the young man, was a beautiful angle of the space which showed the horse nebulae. Beckett decided not to try to escape through any window.

He sighed and focused once again on the room. The warmth in this place was uncommon. The smell of old books, home-made bread, marmalade, and jasmine tea, combined with soft warm colours taking over the place, made him feel like home. An odd feeling considering that _home_ was an abstract concept that he gave up since he become Kindred.

Beckett's second thought tensed his jaw. What if this was a trap? He was falling into it so easily. The Book of Nod had always been clear: stay away from Lilith's children, for they deceive. They were unnatural and only could bring death upon the Kindred. But after such dark thoughts, he remembered his personal hypothesis that maybe, this man was a ghoul **.** And the thought, somehow, turned the whole situation into a little less dangerous one. Or at least he wanted to believe so.

Warily, Beckett sat aside the man and observed his eyes. They were dark brown, lacking of any powerful glow that he had seen before. They were not golden or filled with despair and obsession, as all ghouls' usually had. And such detail confused him.

"Worry not. This place was made for healing, for shelter. Fights and blood and pain will corrupt it to its decay."

Beckett looked around. It was a common house. Well, a common house whose entrance was a carved tree with vanishing doors and crazy windows. "Did you create it?."

"No. I was guided to here. It's a resting place for confused minds". He said pushing gently the other teacup towards Beckett.

"I can't drink tea".

"It is not."

Beckett looked into the china and observed the crimson liquid. Blood?. But he could not smell it. He sniffed and still yet, nothing. Just jasmines. The whole place was odd suddenly, his senses were absolutely nulled. Could the mage know that?. Beckett stared at the man who had observed his surprise with a deadpan face, drinking his tea. Beckett looked down at the teacup once again, its red colour was right, and nothing was odder than his impossibility of smelling it. Once again the question raised: what if this was a trap?. Mages were trickster creatures. But could this drink kill him? As a vampire only holy water would have a nasty effect but it would certainly not kill him. Not in this proportion anyway.

"That's not of your taste?." The mage said placing his teacup on a small saucer.

"Nothing here makes sense to me. And considering my age, I've seen a lot of ridiculous things by now" The intended joke ended in concern barely displayed on the mage's eyes, but it never reached his whole face. If elders were among livings, certainly they would behave like this man. Beckett sighed humanly, and smirked. " if this is a trap...."

"Why would I want to trap you? Especially in my shelter?."

Beckett raised an eyebrow. The mage's heartbeat had increased slightly. At least his ears were not saturated. Yet. "Well, why would you invite me to your shelter in the first place?"

"I did not invite you. You were looking for me. You must have questions that require answers."

"Nobody puts a location spell hidden in a piece of cloth and wishes not to be found".

"Humph. For what it matters". The mage said after a sip of tea.

"Anyways. Answer my question. Why did you lead me here?".

The mage looked at his open book, moved some pages and sipped. "To drink tea. Obviously". He finally said.

Beckett extended his forced smile, tensing his jaw. "OK. Let's say I trust you. Why would a human want to drink tea, in his shelter, with a predator?. Death-wish?". He smirked, but his gesture became serious when the mage looked down on his own teacup.

“You gave your word of not killing me, back then. I kept mine. I'm here for giving you information. Whichever you want.”

“You could have lied to me. It could have save you of this situation”

“Humph”. The mage kept in silence for a long moment, then he looked into Beckett's eyes. The mutual focus was so intense, that Becket could not avoid to invade into him. The mage did not resist, on the contrary, he gave him full access to go deeper, to explore his mind, his fragments of life, until the vampire was overwhelmed and had to stop. Times older than Beckett's appeared in the mage's memories. Times before even the Renaissance.

Confused, Beckett observed the table and the open books on it, this time in detail. A lot of them were extremely new; others were well know by him when he was a human, old classic ones in Victorian times; and others, almost papyrus, were ancient and impossible for him to guess the age they belonged.

"You are not a human. Your messed mind has lived centuries. You.... Are you a ghoul? But an ancient magical ghoul would have lost his powers by now", he allowed himself to be blunt.

The mage made a strange groan which seemed to be precarious laugh, as if the man had forgotten how to do it. Could it be possible?. "Oof. Do I lack of so much personality that you confuse me with a Kindred slave?."

Beckett rose one eyebrow. "Kindred?. So polite."

The mage sipped several times. That tea was infinite. "You have just seen it. You know what I am."

Beckett looked at the teacup full of blood. "I've heard of powerful Lilith's children who can control time. They can stop it and walk among a paused scene as you did with the werewolf weeks ago. But I've never heard of them becoming immortals"

"It's not immortality. At least not what I have. It's this place. You can spend here all the time of the world and you won't age unless you leave. It's out of everything."

“So you are a normal human who lives in a house stuck in time?”

The mage sipped his tea and nodded in silence. “This is the only place where my mind can find sense.”

Beckett snorted looking at the window which displayed the horse nebulae. "That certainly is senseless. But well. Now I must insist, why would you trust a predator to come here, if this place is so sacred for you?"

"Do you trust in me?" The mage said as his eyes turned greener, and a mystical glow illuminated them.

"Not the best moment to say it, don't you think?

The mage did not laugh, nor smiled. The man seemed to have forgotten how to look human, how to react humanly. And maybe that was the case. If his whole life, centuries of loneliness were spent there, in that house, this creature was not so different than any old Kindred. In fact, he was lonelier.

Beckett forced a sigh. "I don't even know your name".

"Lucca or Mouri, choose any"

“Two names?”

“You have two as well. Probably more than two. Things change us and we become aware that we are not who we were once. So we need to kill our names.”

“But... Which one is your dead name? **“**

“Ah who knows by now **”**

Beckett frowned lost in the meaning. “Well, my name is Beckett, but you already know that. Ex-Hollow One, right?” He looked around and found three green books in a pile on the far extreme of the table. Three versions of a book he knew pretty well. He reached them out, opened one, and found it was blank. Nothing written in it, just pages and pages of blank sheets. The second one had something else. _Do not go to the forest during 1704_. He blinked in surprise. He never saw that book. It would have prevented... so many nightmares.

The third one said: _do not mistrust the man with the limping_ . He took out the book he had in his bag and looked at the message inside it, just to be sure this crazy place was not messing words in magical books. _Bring to the hollowness. Giving twice._

No. There was no trick.

"You were the one who gave me this for the first time? In England?" Beckett asked placing his book besides the teacup. The cover had some blood splattered on it. Maybe werewolf blood.

“I have always been. **”**

“And these?”. He pointed out the other books

“I gave them to you too.”

Beckett twisted his lips, offended by the lie, “I don't think so.”

The mage looked at the book which cover was strained with blood. “How unfortunate”.

The mysterious tone of the mage exasperated Beckett. This man was more cryptic than any Malkavian. And he had not only met several of them during his long life, he had also mentors among them. This man, however, was far beyond any possible interpretation.

Beckett still had no measure of truths and lies that the mage could say, vital information when it comes to a Lilith's children. Looking for it, he observed again his teacup. “And this? What's this?”

“What it looks like.”

“Is it your blood? Because I don't want anything to do with a Lilith's child.”

“Are you going to trust in me if I tell you that it is?

Beckett remained wary, that kind of answer made the mage more suspicious than trustworthy. “What age are you from? Is this your future or your past?”

“I don't know. It's always a cycle.”

Beckett sighed exasperated. “Are you going to answer me something straightforward? I'm losing my patience, and I'm not gentle when I do.”

Lucca's sight jumped immediately to Beckett red eyes and raised the left sleeve of his robe, exposing his damaged skin. There were silver scales spread all over half his forearm and wrist. They were incrustations that seemed to come from the bone. “I've been living all my life in a time maze. There is no time for me. Not in the same way like you. Just cycles. And I'm trying to do something. Something important. It costs me this every time I fail.” He scratched some silver scales, ripping them off from his skin, but showing no facial gesture of pain. Blood oozed from where they had been ripped. He threw one long scale half stained with blood beside Beckett's teacup. “But I start over, and over, and over. It's human blood. With a bit of magic due to the cycle. And no, it won't make you addict.”

Well, that was the most straightforward answer he was going to get from him. Somehow, the man seemed suddenly familiar to Beckett. That kind of familiarity that comes from pointless and lost memories. Or maybe it was just that curious mantle of loneliness that surrounded the sad mage. A deep darkness that the mage transmitted, proper of damned creatures that made them close.

Beckett sighed, tired. Discovering a mystery meant to risk something. He knew it perfectly. Nothing to gain when nothing to bet. He looked at his teacup first, and then at the mage. "you better this has no holy water". He heard a dry, rusty sound coming from the mage's throat, like a soft strange laugh, and only when he saw that odd smile on him, Beckett drank it.

The taste brought him memories of old times, almost centuries ago, pretty close to that traumatic night in which he was embraced. But instead of terror and despair, the usual emotions that those memories inspired in him, he felt a warm, calm sentiment. A healing touch. Jasmines. He felt high, and had to squeeze his legs to feel them. He thought they were twisted, covered in fur, but no; they were human again. They had been recovered centuries ago, but his memories at that moment made him confuse them with those in the long past nightmarish nights.

That taste in his mouth reminded him all those years trapped in a vicious cycle of guilt, starvation, and frenzy states that followed after his embrace. Loneliness and terror were all he got during those first decades. Any feeling, from angry to fear, was enough to set the Beast free, just to awake bathed in blood, to cry more blood in fear and anger, and start once again that damned cycle of bestiality.

That madness had changed all his body, he was barely human when his Sire appeared that night at the cave. But thankfully, his transformation had not lasted long enough to stuck completely in his flesh. Years later, when he found Anatole, he recovered most of his human body through years, almost decades, of deep meditation that his friend and mentor had taught to him. Sadly, Beckett could never recover his hands and eyes. The Beast had a particular liking for those parts of his body.

A wave of nostalgia wrapped him at the thought of his dear friend and mentor Anatole. He opened his eyes, closed until that moment due to the effect of the blood, and looked at the mage who sipped his tea. Jasmines scent. Like the thought of Anatole, there was something else than familiarity in that particular scent. A well-known feeling of something or someone healing his body, with that exactly same taste in his mouth. Beckett blinked at the realisation “You were... you fed me back then?”

“Many times. In many worlds. As I give this to you." he said pointing out the teacup full of blood. "Many times. But you do not always accept my invitation. As you never accepted my warnings” he looked at the green books that Beckett had read a moment ago. “It's always about to do the same thing many, many, many times.” Lucca looked down, exhausted.

Now, after this revelation, Beckett started to remember the mage's face in some of his memories, small fragments of meaningless daily life. That time when he had met him for the first time, when he had talked to him about books, when he had shared a glass of wine in a Victorian old tavern of York, an exchange of archaeological information in Peru. The mage had always been there, a presence scattered all over his past in hollow, irrelevant situations. Lucca. It had always been Lucca, in every shadow, in every corner. “Why are you doing this? Why I can remember you just now?” Beckett asked overwhelmed by the amount of vain memories.

“Do you trust in me?”

His red eyes locked on those green ones. That question had always been there too. Always present in every conversation they shared, pointless yet significant. A question raised to float in the air, without expectations of an answer. An habit that both of them had acquired. He tended to ask the question, flitting around in the air, and Beckett simply remained silent, leaving it unanswered. Because he was Kindred, and Kindred never trust in anyone.

He looked at the table, at the green books and red handkerchiefs spread on it. Trust. That human, rare virtue.

 

* * *

 

 **  
** **Book of Nod. Sometime.  
A page.**

 

_The Mother of Power, dark Lilith,_

_is of the greatest of them,_

_but there are others,_

_and more yet to come._

_Drink not of their blood, for they will_

_ensnare you,_

_Keep wary of them, they are crafty._

_They know Adam's knowledge,_

_and Eve's wisdom._

_they are the bringers of fire,_

_the tillers of soil,_

_the husbanders of animals,_

_the bringers of writing,_

_they are the Sun-children,_

_the Rising Stars._

_They will seek to involve you in their_

_journey._

_Resist! Resist! their path disregards_

_hunger, blood, and body._

_Trust not the ones with bright eyes_

_towards the dawn:_

_Remember always, it is the Dawning that_

_brings your death. (2)_

* * *

 

 

 

**England, Oxford. 1701.  
The Gesture.**

 

What a terrible day. Oversleeping, then being late at class, and finally, starting the evening exposition with all the highest directives of the University at the entrance of the assembly hall with your latest publications in their hands, faces petrified into disappointment and revulsion.

“Professor Warren, this is outrageous!.” The Oxford’s main director screamed as he approached the group of men gathered in the darkest corner outside the assembly hall.

“May I pry what's happening here?”.

“We have just been warned about your recent publication...” the man threw the paper sheets at Edward's face.

He took them and read the title: _Mythological creatures used nowadays to explain what science can not yet_. “Mhn. I assume you don't like the title? Too long, verily? I said the same.”

“We have half of our research groups focused on developing the cure of vampirism and lycantrhopy” a second man, high-pitched voice, said in an agitated state.

Edward laughed openly. “I've told you for years that such things were a waste of resources. I've already proved, in my work last year, that the amount of cows found dead with almost no blood in their system were due to the actions of several colonies of Desmodus rotundus, usually known as vampire bats. There are no vampires as in humans with fancy fangs. Please.”

“You didn't prove a thing...”

“I beg to disagree. I did. In fact, I've even found a colony, and followed it for several months. I've documented everything. You should check my research. It has been published already last year.”

“Professor Warren, you are obsessed with destroying your colleagues' career.”

Crossing his arms, Edward frowned at the creepy old man that had insulted him. “What? Is this a joke?”

“I'm afraid it's not", the director said, looking aside, "so we have decided that you are not allowed to be part of the University any longer.”

“What? I've dedicated my whole life to this University!. My family has been part of its most renowned scholars for generations!” He wide opened his eyes, infuriated. "The Warrens, the Claymonts, the Newtons. I come from a family of academic prestige."

“And you should have kept that in mind before focusing on destroying other colleagues' careers. I'm afraid, professor Warren, that we have no other option than forbid you to be part of our core members. Oxford must keep its high reputation. We can't allow...”

“… a man that casts doubts about the mythical knowledge that this supposed serious university wants to sell as truth?.” Warren interrupted, squeezing his own folded arm.

The director cleared his throat and continued with a grave, deep voice, “... We can't allow a mad man to question what the scientific community has accepted long time ago.”

“Well, for centuries humans believed that rain was Zeus' doing. Imagine what happened when someone started to question what _< <the scientific community had accepted for a long time>>_?”

“I understand your bitterness, Mr. Warren”

“Bitterness?. Oh, no, it's not bitterness. It's ire. I would have accepted such ignorance coming from a group of peasants with too many years giving their ears to nonsensical preachers, but you? This institution of the truth?, the embodiment of knowledge and exploration?. Never.”

“Well, we can't care less about your opinion on the matter, Mr. Warren” said an elder man who had been silent during all the argument. “But we have courses about God, about evil and good, and current creatures such as werewolves and vampires. Our researchers are working on them, and we can't allow inconsistencies in our core members.”

“Inconsistencies? You say?. Lies I would mean.” Edward sighed deeply annoyed, “Very well. One last thing before leaving this place.” He walked into the class, and with his clearest and deepest voice explained in a witty and sarcastic tone that he was no longer professor of the Oxford University, because the institution was deeply compromised to maintain the ignorance instead of looking for the truth.

Once he released his ire in a brief sharp speech, he stepped out from the assembly hall, and walked past the group of men who were red of embarrassment and anger.

Edward looked at them with despise and promised himself to never again use his title of scholar. Scholars were fools pretending to be better than anyone else, more concerned about the ridiculous structures of a too rigid institution than the truth itself.

 

So there he was, spending his evening alone, instead of surrounded by his students, looking at the books exposed outside a small store in a corner of the market. There were some of the books he had written. He smiled at one of his titles: “ _The power of myths”_. A set of essays showing how humans preferred to believe in a world guided by magical rules than to accept their own responsibilities and ignorance. He was proud of it.

“May I help you?” a soft voice brought him back into reality. It was a young Asian man, the owner of this small book store that Edward liked to visit regularly. The man had a particular, almost magical ability to acquire the rarest books around the world, and in the best conditions. It was hard not to be his client if you were a scholar. A real one, that is.

He smiled with tiredness. “Not today.”

“Was there something wrong, Sir?. You looked, look tired.”

“I am, indeed.” Edward said, giving to the man a couple of books he had found interesting enough to buy. When the young man took them, his sleeve got stuck with a corner of a cover, lifting it some inches while exposing his wrist skin, partially affected by silver scales that seemed to dig deeper in his flesh. He covered it quickly and looked aside. Edward frowned in silence, waiting an explanation.

“Sir, please. Don't tell anyone. The Church will attack me otherwise. They only needed an excuse, they already hate me for this store...”

Edward snorted, putting the books on the table and offering his hand to the man. “May I? I'm a good doctor as well...”

Looking down, the man lifted his sleeve and showed his skin at the scholar. A short extension of his wrist and forearm were covered in silver scales. Carefully, Edward touched it with a finger, testing the consistence of the scales. They were deeply encrusted into the skin, probably mixed with the muscle and impeding its free movement. “Mnhn. I've never seen anything like this...”

“It's fine, Sir. I'm glad if you just keep it as a secret.”

“Of course. You have nothing to worry about from me.” He said looking for something in his pockets, “And I can offer you this. These were made of an exquisite quality, quite rare . You won't believe how your sense of touch is unaffected.” he gave to him a couple of gloves that the young man accepted with a shy smile.

“Thank you, Sir. Much appreciated. You are like no one in these days...”

Edward laughed. “Well, this morning I was told that, in a less compliment way, I may add.”

The book seller smiled. He wore the gloves enjoying the sensation of that fine leather, and took the books to wrap them in a dark rugged paper with a rough cord. He offered the package to Edward.

“Thank you very much. How much?”

The young man shook his head. “It's fine.”

“Believe me, I won't put you in danger. I'm not fond of the Church either.” Edward sighed. “I was dismissed from my professor position just a couple of hours ago simply because I don't like to spread myths, no matter if they are approved or not by the Church. So, please, accept my money. Everyone needs to eat. Especially you with your condition” He took that gloved hand and put a bunch of coins on it, closing its fingers gently and ending the gesture with a soft tap on the wrist. The young man looked at him fondly, and a dim green spark appeared in his pupils.

“Thank you very much, Sir. And I'm sorry for your situation.”

“Nothing to be sorry. Better to walk alone in the right path, than following a crooked one with a bunch of lunatics.” The young man laughed looking down, as if he knew such situation from personal experience. “I will pass the rest of the night in the main tavern of the city. I'm not a man as fond of drinking as I am of a good conversation. And I think you may be a good company tonight. Would you like to share some drinks later? Books and obscene opinions of the Church will be the main topics. Tell me it's tempting.”

The seller blinked in surprise and widened his smile, nodding. "Absolutely tempting".

 

Later, when the night welcomed the Bohemians and alcoholics, the tavern's door opened to let pass a young man. He got the attention of the whole place, not because he needed a cane to walk, nor because his face had East features. It was something beyond that, an ephemeral sensation radiated from him, as if he were not there, but yet, he was as concrete as his bones and flesh. Of course people would never admit that strangeness, and would justify with his features what they could not understand what was laying beneath.

He looked around quickly, trying to spot a particular man while enduring the intense gazes. So many years had passed, and still yet he could not get used to that feeling of being the strange one in an ocean of white men. That was his effect everywhere around Europe. People looking intensely at him, wondering, judging him with their silent predatory eyes that let transparent the wickedest ideas. Sometimes he asked himself what made him remain in these ungrateful lands.

 

Edward was in a corner of the tavern, drinking with a man who laughed at the recently arrived. “The gem of the East. It's said they spread a horrible illness. I can't believe this city has one of them. They are everywhere, like the pox.”

“My, I'm delighted to have just shared drinks with the gem of the West. The invaders that spread their pox all around the world. Talking about illnesses". Edward grinned, waving his hand at the young man in the distance.

The man grabbed Edward's arm.“Are you going to drink with it?”

“I've been drinking with you. I don't see a problem", Edward moved away his arm in order to get free of that man's grip while the book seller reached the table. "I enjoy high quality conversations. And you just ran out of any of them.”

The man snorted, looking threatening towards the recently arrived man. However, he could not keep his sight, a green spark shone in the young man's pupils, and the phantasmagorical sensation that suddenly wrapped him made him look down and leave the table. Despite being beside them, Edward was a complete stranger to the whole creepy situation going on between those men.

“Please, don't mind those narrow-sight men… sadly, this place usually is full of them but I thought I had found an exception.. My apologies.”

“Are you a regular customer here?” The young man asked, softening his gesture now he was in a table and all the attention upon him was dissipated. He leant his cane against the edge of the table.

“No, not a regular one. But I like to have a good conversation with interesting people now and then. And wine in this tavern is exquisite despite its appearance” Edward raised his hand and gestured to the waiter to bring another glass and more wine.

“I would have never imagined a scholar like you to be in a place like this….”

“Oh… do you know who I am?” Edward raised his eyebrows in surprise. It had been a while since he made of a habit his visits to the man's book store, but he never guessed that he could know his name. His books had no portraits of him, and despite the fact that there were not many people working for the prestigious Oxford university, it was hard to guess who was who.

The young man looked down, smiling. “Hard not to, Sir. You are a well known scholar in Oxford. Anyone who had read some books of Theology would know about you and your marvellous work of how _beliefs_ shape our political and economical life, our reality itself. Only the most _awakened_ minds would perceive it...”

The comment made Edward widen his smile and straightened his back, proud and glad that someone, finally, was recognizing his work in its true form, with all the dangers that such perspective had put him in these days... But then, he wrinkled his nose. “From now on, I'll consider myself a seeker of reluctant information; "scholar" sounds like academia – ugh!. I want to be as far as possible of that nest of snakes” The young man laughed. “By the way, I've been buying books in your store for so long and still yet I've never had the pleasure of asking your name.”

The young man hesitated for a moment. “Lucca Capaggio”.

Edward frowned. “An Italian name?, forgive my curiosity… but your look… No offence...”

The man sighed with sadness. “None taken, Sir. I'm not from Italy, if that's your guess.. it's just a name I took when I arrived.”

“May I ask your real name?”

The man blinked twice. “Mouri. Mouri Yoshinari. But no man could, can pronounce it correctly. ”

“So you took a comfortable name for them to use… why adapting oneself to the whims of everyone else?” Edward drank his wine and poured a bit more, waiting patiently the answer. The young man was struggling to find it.

“Because it brings unwanted attention, and annoyance, such as the Inquisition's, Sir”

A dry sound of a forced laugh came from Edward's lips. “You are not _that_ old. None of us is.”

But any other question was cut off amid by the barman who placed a new glass on the table and another jar of wine. Edward poured a bit more in his own glass and his companion's.

“You must enjoy this wine.” he offered as a silent truce of his question. Who knew what that young man had passed through to make a living so far away from his home.

Lucca drank a bit and tasted the sweet remnants in his mouth. Certainly this wine was special. "Was your recent essay what costed you your position at the university?"

Edward blinked twice while sipping. "Indeed. I see you are quite well informed". Edward looked at the table and scratched its surface. "Those who have the moral obligation to bring light upon our society are blind to the truth. Reputation, money, prestige. Those are considered more important than truth itself. Unfortunate future we have ahead if those are the moral values we appreciate now".

Lucca surrounded his wine glass with his gloved hands. "Do you believe you have the truth?"

"That's an interesting question if we are brave enough to ask what the truth is and where we may find it. But putting aside such interesting train of thoughts—we need to be too drunk already to head into it, I might add--, I'd day no. No. Of course I'm not the bringer of truth. I'm mostly sure I will be probably missing something in the process. It's an attitude proper of a brat to think that one human alone will understand everything when our life is so short". Edward sighed, maybe truly disappointed by that reality.

“Would you like to have an eternity for yourself?”

“It's useless to waste energy in things that will never happen”

“If it were for that, most of our current disciplines would be pointless to exist”

“Well said, my friend”.

Both toasted joining their glasses and drank.

“You don't, didn't answer my question, professor Warren. Was your last essay what brought you such calamity?”

Edward placed his elbows in the edge of the table. " _Mythological creatures used nowadays to explain what science can not yet_. Quite a fancy title. I was wishing that such length would not attract much attention from the university. You know, these men hate to read long things" Lucca smiled at the irony. "Farmers and academics will always hate to read too much". Lucca looked at him mysteriously silent without agreeing. It was a cautious attitude to take. Edward did not blame him. He was, after all, a humble book seller. Listening ridiculous entitled opinions with a deadpan face just to sell a book was what he had been doing for a living.

"Answering your question. Yes. _That_ and my previous work from last year. There is a particular kind of bat which is hematophagous that had been brought from America. A colony of a hundred of them can kill twenty five cows by drinking their blood. There is nothing vampiric there. I'm trying to prove now that werewolves may be the same case, a new specie conquering our environment due to the uncaring importation of animals; or a rare human illnesses like that one you have." Lucca squeezed his gloved left hand."In your case, people will assume you as a, I don't know, mermaid's offspring of some sort. Well, a merman even. The point is, you are not. You are just a victim of an illness which line of research is still going to happen. I would prefer institutions to start using academic resources for such things than wasting time in _curing vampirism_. It doesn't even exist." Edward drank as final reward of his speech.

"So, you don't believe in the slightest that such creatures exist?."

"Creatures as humans suffering unknown illnesses, of course I do believe. As ancient mythical creatures? Perish the thought. During the last hundred years the university has allowed more than seven hundred papers and essays on that matter. Where it led us?. Nowhere. High quality production in fantasy literature, of course. Charming, but useless. We need medical knowledge, not mythology." Lucca observed his glass of wine. The uncomfortable silence, his jaw tensed, the sadness that suddenly surrounded the young book seller caught Edward's attention. "I take you believe in such things? But why you read my essays if they bring you so much discomfort?"

The man locked his eyes on the professor, "It's not a matter of discomfort. It's disappointment. Reality is more complex than anyone can imagine, and everything we believe in can take shape and become real. The thought that, from all of those options, one has to choose not to believe, disappointed me."

"So, you are assuming that anyone who believes in a mermaid will see it anyway? Is not that what religions are made of? And we know there is no gods or saints, just extreme massive _suggestion_."

Lucca smiled at that train of thoughts, "I'm saying that no matter whether you believe in a mermaid or not, it will exist. Beyond your eyes, beyond your reality. Because you make your own reality. But the true Reality, is not always the one you craft".

Edward frowned, stopping amid the sip he was going to take."Nonsense. That will mean countless realities, as many as humans" Lucca raised his eyebrows, emphatically, "So, you can change reality at your whim?. Just by believing? Very well. Prove it. I dare you, change the state of your arm", he pointed out Lucca's gloved hand.

"Changing one's reality won't change The Reality." The man said with discretion.

Hitting the glass on the table, Edward burst into laughing. "What a convenient answer. So, are you telling me that you could cure yourself just by thinking on it, but it happens that you don't want it because it's not the real reality?"

Lucca looked down, defeated by that logic. It was impossible to explain it to a _sleeper_. Only an awakened after years of awe could grasp the immensity of the concept.

“Do you believe in me?” Lucca finally said, locking his eyes in Edward's, who looked him back warily. After a while he softened his expression.

"I believe that you have several strange ideas, but your open mind makes them interesting to follow, though sometimes irritating."

Lucca smiled. “Of course. Reality is complex and hidden under layers of myths and misconceptions”.

Raised eyebrows, Edward smiled back and said before sipping. “That's a concept I highly support. I love to discuss with people who don't necessarily agree with me, but has interesting ideas. Toast for your wonderful mind...”

Lucca looked down, breathing slowly to calm his heartbeat down, and took his glass, hitting it softly with Edward's. Then, he sought a green handkerchief from his jacket and put it on the table. "Keep this. It's a.... Tradition I have. Show it to me next time we meet." Edward blinked at the piece of clothing, but did not say anything. Mocking traditions, even habits that have become such, was proper of peasants. He took the handkerchief and put it into one of his jacket's inner pocket.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**USA. LaCroix Building's Roof . 2007.  
Roaming thoughts.**

 

Talking was not a strong feature of any Kindred. It was more than crystal clear for Beckett. But as usual as he was told, he was not a common Kindred. He had never been a common human either, back in the time. It seemed that some features stuck with one's personality and never change. Not even after death. In a sense it was a relief.

That night, boredom was doing a mess with his mind. Few times in his un-life he allowed memories hit him. That was the reason, or at least part of it, why he was always doing a research here and there, travelling across the world, digging inside the creepiest tombs. He had tamed his mind to avoid them. If he could control the Beast, his mind was a piece of cake. Most of the time.

But that night, nostalgia struck him deeply. Maybe it had been the petrichor scent that remained after some minutes of strong rain, or maybe it was the warmth of the night, a summer night that made him feel that softly wet sensation that his body had lacked for so many centuries. Perhaps it was one of those rare nights that simply loneliness nested in his chest unavoidably.

Memories always came with the remembrance of loss. And he had a long list about those over his centuries of un-life. Losing Anatole, and now Lucita, had been and were events that shook his ground. They were like him, immortals, and despite the threat of corruption and decay of the soul, he had always thought them as permanent as the moon. He could have never fathom that one day, they would be absent forever. Especially in times like these.

Now the whole situation was absolutely worse, knowing that Gehenna was real, and that his stubborn attitude had led him, once again, to the same ironic situation he had been in, centuries ago: to acknowledge that the myth was, in the end, true.

Mind absent, he caressed a version of the Book of Nod that had in his hands. What a bullshit was written there, what a waste of time studying it for centuries. Now, he was not sure any more if this book had not been a heavy joke of a Malkavian.

Ah, and the thought was inevitable; he missed Anatole. He was the only person who would give some sense in all what had been happening lately. Someone to talk to. Someone to share the end, indeed. He laughed drily at the image of his friend trying to spread hope in dark times like these. Sure, crazy as a good Malkavian and priest, burnt in true Faith, but a good friend, indeed. A rare word used among Kindred, a word he could not hesitate to attribute to Anatole.

He forced a deep, over-dramatic sigh, just to remember how the body used to move. How the ribs used to go up, the air expanded inside, and then, went out.

Yes. He was uncommon.

The rhythmical sound of a metal hitting the ground tensed his body and unfolded his claws, or what remained of them, until jasmine scent reached him. The tranquillity was immediate. Ah. It was him. The other uncommon creature. The strange human.

The crutches kept echoing against the ground until they stopped by Beckett's side.

“What time is it?” the mage asked.

Mage manners. Becket simply chuckled. Before a greeting, that was the first thing he always heard coming from him . “May 14th, 2007”

“Oh. Gehenna happened?”

“Well, it's happening.” He said and looked up at the mage. He did not wear his sunglasses any more, and the red glow behind his iris was gone. Instead, a warm pair of hazel eyes could be seen.

Lucca remained silent for a moment, delighted in observing those eyes. It had been so long since the last time he saw them. With the weakened Beast, they had again that mischievous spark and gentleness that had been erased by the Thirst centuries ago. “How unfortunate”, deadpan face, the mage finally said and sat besides Beckett, struggling with his left leg.

“It's just a countdown. No more time for research. Unfortunate, indeed.”

“You may come to my house. The one lost in time. Gehenna will stop for you… as long as you remain there. You can even survive it...”

“I'll need to feed...”

“I'll do it.”

Beckett frowned at him. “That's unhealthy after a while, you know?.”

Ignoring him, Lucca observed the book and took it gently from Beckett's hands. There was no resistance.

Lucca opened it and read the page that Beckett had put a bookmark in.

_Embrace not Love, for Love in My Embrace will grow cold, wither, and die._

He observed the man in silence, until Beckett took the book in his hands again. "Have you ever experienced love? In your so fractured-in-time life?" Beckett's voice was soft, even tired. Maybe it was another effect of the withering. He certainly wanted to keep distracted from the thought of Gehenna, and talking was a good option as any. After all he was not a common Kindred.

"If you mean falling in..."

"Any kind of love. It's a wide-ranged feeling, isn't it?. Or so I remember."

Lucca observed him with a slight frown. "You remember? You can't feel it since...?"

Beckett grinned. "Love among Kindred is complicated."

"How so?. It is always complicated. Among human or Kindred"

Beckett read aloud the same fragment. “ _Love in My Embrace will grow cold, wither, and die._ This passage, as well as all those in which the book says that we feed on ashes, shows that nothing pure, healthy, or vivid can come from Kindred. The love that blooms among us is based on jyhad, on control, on compulsion. Ghouls love their master in a maniacal way. Sire and childe love each other trough a complex hatred combined with a vicious love born from the Hunger. How would you feel if your love is infused on you, forced on you?. You can't oppose to it, you can only love through this twisted emotion."

"Is it not like it works usually? I've never heard of anyone choosing the object of their affection. Maybe the how can be managed a bit. But to whom?, never."

Beckett snorted. "You keep loving your master despite abhorring them. Love among humans may not be chosen, but never feels wrong. Love is corrupted among my kind."

Lucca shook his head in disagreement. So many forms of twisted, toxic, terrible love could be seen among humans. There were as many ways to feel it wrong as many kinds of love. "You forget, forgot a lot of bad habits in humans. "

"They are not worse than Kindred's" Beckett closed the book and caressed its cover. "If they are, they end a way or another. Death has a...cleansing effect. Eternity wears down the damned soul. I think you can understand it more than any other mortal." Beckett met Lucca's eyes, a shadow of a smile curving slightly his lips, "There is a progressive degradation, a decay of the will to keep living, feeling. But you still keep existing. The Beast within." He forced a deep sigh and looked at the horizon. "If you can control that, someone you know won't. Your dearest friends start to darken, to become less human... " Beckett snorted "well, less whatever we are. They start turning into these creatures, the elders. Vicious desire for power or death, apathy for the livings, mindless creatures controlled by the curse". He looked at him. "You are a child of Lilith, the dark mother, the dark deeply lonely mother, the abandoned lover, the rejected child. She never looked to me quite different to us, the Kindred, despite lacking the Hunger. She is twisted like us."

"Maybe. Lilith gave, gives freedom. And freedom comes with a price. The price of awakening. It's not the despair born from the Thirst, but it's a price anyway."

"I've tried to figure that out, to know what it is... Though, I have to say that there is not much information on the matter. And time... Well, I'm running out of it. Would you indulge a curious mind?"

Lucca cleared his throat, "awakening is different for some. For me, it's to see all the realities at once. To know them in my mind. Past, present, future. All are the same. Each of them in every possible universe"

Beckett chuckled. "That sounds so Malkavian."

"You said that to me, many times, in different worlds." Lucca curved his lips in something that seemed a smile. It was warm to see some things kept the same throughout the universes.

Surprised, Beckett blinked. “You mean you have been speaking with several versions of myself?" .

The mage looked at him for a moment, deep concern tingeing his expression. There was sadness until he looked down, probably hit by some longed memory. “Yes. I've told you once. Reality is a set of overlapped multi-layers of universes. I can jump between them. I've talked to you in all universes.” He finally said, letting a sigh out of his pressured chest.

“Mn. Am I always a vampire?”

His lips contracted a bit. Just a bit. A bit that only a sharp sight could distinguish. “In most of them. There were some chaotic universes in which you were dead already. Which is expected considering your birth date.”

Beckett wide opened his eyes, hit by the deep implications of a world made of infinite options happening all at once. “In all those universes in which I'm Kindred, do I know you?”

Beckett detected a sudden stop in Lucca’s breathing rhythm, a hard swallow, and a soft cough, mainly trapped inside his throat. His heart raced. Beckett hardly could guess the reason. “Just in a few. I've been interacting with you in different... contexts” Lucca kept his eyes down, and touched his left hand, feeling the texture of the silver scales.

“Wait. You? So... There is no other versions of you in those universes?”

“No. Awakening is the collapse of all your selves in every universe, of all realities in one mind, in your own body. You have access to the memory of all of them, somehow, eventually. It's the price”

“Oh. So, you are quite unique throughout the infinite universes.” Beckett smirked sarcastically, “But I remember talking to you looking different. Sometimes older, sometimes younger. Have you been the same in all of them?”

“I was. Or I will. I remember those interactions too. And many others that are not part of your memory now. But they may be, eventually.”

Becket looked at him intrigued. "How so? Are those interactions still going to happen?."

"No."

Beckett sighed, looking at the sky. It was just a second. He looked down again to his side, where the mage was now gone.

Damned Lilith’s children.

 

* * *

 

 

**England, Oxford. Forest outside. July 24 th 1704.**

**Nightmarish loop.** ****

Lucca panted, hands resting against the tree trunk, barely enduring the piercing growth of more scales in his knee. Returning to this point over and over was bad for his body. The growth was more violent each time, and he had less flesh to spare. He did not want to think what was going to happen when his limbs would have been completely covered, and the scales would have directed to his torso.

Suddenly, a scream reverberated through the forest and birds turned silent all at once. It was him again.

The date was always easy to reach, but it was impossible to be earlier than that precise moment. Earlier than the beginning of the end.

Lucca ran, or tried to, but his knee did not bend properly and stumbled, falling on the soft wet ground; part of his face ended covered in mud. He wiped it out with his forearm and struggled to stand up. The screams continued, infusing part of their desperation in his own soul, so he crawled through the brushes, guided by the sonorous horror and pain.

Deep inside, he knew that reaching that place was forbidden. It was one of the fixed points in a person life, something common to most stable universes. But that was not the only reason. He did not want to see that scene again, he was worn out of watching always the same. The same repeated picture carved in his tired eyes: a man soaked in blood on the ground, convulsing or trying to fight with his last bits of strength, while a beast over him was draining him to death. The man's screams lost their vitality after a while, and ended into suffocated moans tinged in harrowing desperation, getting lower and lower as death slightly embraced him.

"No" Lucca whispered and closed his eyes. That scene was a nightmare. It was torture. A footprint of pain echoing in every layer of reality .

Those terrible sounds coming from a victim too scared and exhausted to do anything else, and still yet with enough bravery to uselessly hit the beast with his weakened fists.

Lucca closed his eyes tightly, and a wave of green energy surrounded him increasing its intensity every second. A strong shift had happened, his body knew it as the scales grew a bit more, deep inside the flesh.

When he opened his eyes once again, he was in the same place, but the victim crying out of terror was nowhere to be found, nor the monster draining him to death. He stood up and walked some laboured steps, but stopped. someona ran past the tree where the victim had been agonizing a moment ago.

This time the man, bleeding and stumbling, fell on the ground unable to jump the tree roots standing out from the ground. That exhausted man took just a second for breathing, when the Beast appeared once more and grasped him, biting his neck and tearing it apart. Once again the screams, the pain, the horror.

Lucca closed his eyes and violently unleashed magic in all directions, tornados of green lighting cleaned that scenery, and like a glitch image on a screen, the event was removed while reality mutated at his whim: the victim, the beast, the tree, its roots. The changes finished when a golden sunset appeared from nowhere.

He cried as some scales penetrated his femur, and his magic diminished. Panting of pain, sweat glittering his forehead, he crawled to the place where the tree was and waited. Minutes had passed and the sun was still in the horizon, never truly sinking itself in the end of the landscape. He wiped out the sweat running across his forehead and a drop that had to fall to the ground kept suspended in the air. It looked as if it were floating, but in reality it was falling. Slowly. Incredibly slow.

This was his chance.

Struggling with his leg, he broke a branch of a nearby tree and used it as an improvised cane. He walked through the forest until identifying a Victorian tent. Relief washed Lucca's spirit.

Behind the tent, still fixing the supporting sticks into the ground and stretching canvas, a man of stylish pose, long black hair, and a slender complexion, was stopped in time. Or that was what looked like in a careless glimpse. Slowly, too slowly, every muscle of the man was moving in an imperceivable pace.

Lucca closed his eyes and let another wave of magic unleash. Only then, the time returned to its usual pace.

The man who was still setting the tent stopped his movements and looked at him with a slight frown in his face

"I beg your pardon Sir, but I did not notice your arrival"

"Stop this. Return to your home."

Edward chuckled. "Please, don't tell me you are one of those men that my friends have hired to discourage my research".

"No. This... will be, was, is... a matter of death or life"

Edwards wrinkled his nose. "Life _and_ death. A matter of life _and_ death" he took his backpack and revolved its inside while speaking. "I know I'm not part of the university any more—and for some it would be equivalent to death—but that's a bit extreme; there is life after the academia, my friend".

"You were, will be killed tonight".

"Is that a threat, Sir?. Because in that case.."

Edwards took his revolver from the backpack and aimed it against the man.

Lucca shook his head, observing the gun. "Please. I'm tired of this. Over and over I see you die. I see you hurt. I see you hating your nature afterwards. Stop it."

Edward lowered his weapon and frowned. His lips moved to ask for something, but night fell all of the sudden and blackness spread all along the forest. A dreadful silence took over the place and a chilling fog raised among them.

A time glitch. A sudden correction of something that was going to be changed.

Lucca fell on the ground, crying in pain as deep scales extended to his hip, punishing him for daring the logical order of the world. His glitched image appeared and disappeared several times from the scenery until pain diminished a bit and allowed him to control his flow of magic. But it was too late. As soon as he regained some control of his body, he heard once again that terrified scream followed by agonizing moans. He had failed. Again. Despite reaching before the end.

He sat on the ground and waited. The sun and the moon took over the sky several times, trees grew and died in an accelerated pace, while different layers of reality and time sought a balance to mantain the fixed events as they were to meant to be.

Fog and rain and sunshine. One after the another, lasting some seconds each. Until he saw him. The wrecked beast was desperately hungry, grunting, walking towards him with red, savage glowing eyes. Any vestiges of humanity in it had been submitted to the lust for blood.

Lucca did not move from the place, he waited for him, as he had always did.

The beast pounded towards him, its claws soaked in blood like the rest of his twisted body. Its body was not human any more, legs and arms were more similar to a wolf's, and its red violent eyes replaced his hazel ones. There was nothing from the previous man in that beast.

Lucca stopped time in the moment the beast was going to claw his neck. Struggling to stand up, Lucca approached the floating beast and touched his forehead. Blue mist radiated from his palm, and that intense red in its eyes weakened, tranquillized by the spell.

Then he let the time flow to its natural pace, and the beast fell on the ground, sleeping calmly. He turned over the body, and cleaned its face with his sleeve.

"I'm so sorry. I failed you again."

He took a knife from his belt and cut his own palm, pouring his blood into the beast's mouth. There was nothing more to do now.

"I swear, I'll find a way".

With a movement of his hand he teleported both of them to a cave, that cave that was going to be the Beast's home for several decades.

He caressed the beast's forehead, feeling the pain of the scales echoing in his body while sweat running along his cheeks. His vision was getting blurry. There was going to be only one more chance.

"Next time, I'll do it". He said, and disappeared leaving behind a fresh scent of jasmine.

 

* * *

 

**Book of Revelations of the Dark Mother. Sometime.  
A page.**

 

_Then unto him came Michael,_

_burning Host of the Flame,_

_bearing tidings of mercy from the One Above._

_And Caine, proud Caine,_

_Son of Adam,_

_strengthened by my garden,_

_declared that he alone would grant mercy unto himself._

_So Michael visited the Curse of Fire upon Caine of Nod._

_And I smiled, for it pleased me._

 

_Then unto him came Raphael,_

_Lamber Host of the Dawn,_

_bearing tidings of forgiveness from the One Above._

_And Caine, proud Caine,_

_Son of Adam,_

_strengthened by my garden,_

_declared that he alone would judge his actions._

_So Raphael visited the Curse of Dawn upon Caine of Nod,_

_and I smiled, for it pleased me._

_  
Then unto him came Uriel,_

_Shrouded Host of the Deep,_

_bearing tidings of surcease from the One Above._

_And Caine, proud Caine,_

_Son of Adam,_

_strengthened by my garden,_

_declared that he and all his children to come would rest only when he saw fit_

_So Uriel visited the Curse of Ashes upon Caine of Nod._

 

_Once more, as Caine hid in darkness,_

_Did I come upon him._

“ _Verily” I said,_

“ _You have tended my garden well, as a farmer should”_

_And, understanding, he cursed me_

_with ashes, with wormwood and with barrenness,_

_As he disappeared into the night. (1)_

 

 


	4. Part 4

 

 **England, Oxford. 1702.**  
**The stranger.**

 

During a whole year Edward Warren travelled around the country, performing his problematic and highly polemic researches in every forest he found while looking for a place where to give lessons. However, being a professor rejected by Oxford had put him in a disadvantaged position. No other university, not even the smallest ones, wanted him in their courses since he had compromised his own credibility. They were convinced that the man was a bad influence for academy in general.

Tired of such rejection, Edward returned to Oxford, looking for the only last contact that could help him and, probably, offer him some work. After all, it was a person that could have access to a long list of intellectuals to contact with.

He went straight to the book store.

Sadly, time had passed, and things had changed for everyone. In the very place where the old book store used to be there was now a shoe store, tended by a mature couple. They knew nothing about the previous owner of that store and told Edward to ask the oldest person in town: an old lady who lived several streets down.

Unfortunately, he found his answer with her. She explained to him that an Asian man had been killed months ago in an dark alleyway as a result of the widespread panic caused by the rumour that his people were bringing strange illness to Britain.

Edward nodded grateful for the information and left the place, heading to the nearest Church; the only place where there existed a strict control of the dead.

Under the excuse of looking for his brother-in-law, Edward convinced the local priest to search for death registers that could have an Italian or Asian name. Without any luck, and under the pressure of the priest, Edward finally specified the exact name for a more efficient search. However, when he spelled <<Lucca Capaggio>> the priest became furious. He closed the register violently and forced Edward to leave the Church immediately saying something along the lines of helping a Devil's child and being poisoned by his diabolic tongue. It turned out that Lucca had been annoying the Church with more than just his own existence or his strange illness.

Without a grave to visit, or a consistent clue to follow, Edward walked to the main park and rested in a bench for a while, deciding what to do with his life. His B plan had totally failed.

Maybe Britain had already offered to him everything that it could, and he had to march to the continent. But, he had second thoughts. It was common that the majority of ideas conceived in Britain turned into a trend all over the continent. Chances to find something different there were extremely low.

The only opportunity to clean his name, and to show he had been correct all this time, was to perform a last and immense research about mythological creatures in the English forests.

Gathering every bit of optimism he could, he stood up and headed to a nearby hotel. He needed to rest properly for what he was going to start tomorrow.

It was there when he saw him. An man with crutches walking to a bench. It was as if the man had appeared from the thin air.

"What happened to you?" Edward asked, touching with gentleness Lucca's shoulder, feeling the texture of scales under the clothes and the fragility of his whole sick body.

"Time". He said, without explanation, without life.

"It's been just a year.... But you look.... May I help you with something?".

That man. He was not young any more, several years had worn out his face and his body, which moved in a more painful way. It looked like ten years had passed, when it had been only one. Edward also noticed that now, this man needed a pair of crutches to walk, the cane had become useless. His hand, ungloved, had all its back covered with silver scales, and part of them were reaching his neck while small ones decorated his left cheekbone. However, the changes were deeper than just the scales. His eyes became darker, lacking of that sparking light that was proper of him when he smiled. And the smiles. They were gone. It was like all that kindness and shy vitality had been worn out, drained, withered. It was as if had passed centuries. If a mummy were alive, it would have been like him. Dried and dusty, dying and destroyed. Maybe that strange illness had taken a big toll on his weakened body.

"I'm tired, and confused. I'll confuse. What time is it?" Lucca said.

"Afternoon".

"No. Day. Year".

Edward blinked deeply concerned. His mind was failing now. He slid his hand on Lucca's shoulder to reach his back. Poor thing. "1702, November 5th. Last year we drank together in the main tavern. Do you remember me?. You gave me this". He took that red handkerchief from the inside of his jacket.

"I will. I did. I always do". He said, and the afternoon light hit him as it highlighted the dark circles under his eyes. "Oh, it's red. It was almost you". His eyes focused on the piece of fabric in Edward's hand, sadness bathed his look. It was as if that red colour meant something else, something lost, never again recovered. Something absolutely wrong.

"May I help you with something?" Edward insisted, unable to say anything useful.

"Come to my home. Let's drink once again. It's the only place where I felt better. Feel. Will feel better".

Edward walked close to him, afraid of the man could fall and break what was not yet a silver petrifaction.

They walked what seemed to be miles and ended at front of a rock with a strange door on it, oriented to a beach. Edward frowned, confused by the surroundings. They never had completely left the streets of Oxford city, so he could not explain how they ended in Yorkshire.

Edward was going to ask about the surprising destiny when Lucca opened the door and pulled him softly into the house. It followed a long corridor to an enormous library with thousands of books. Edward never had seen a personal library as big as the national one. Books of ancient times were displayed in glass cabinets, and some shelves were labelled with years that had yet to come. This brought Edward's attention; he could not understand those numbers as years until he took a book of something called Harry Potter, which had been—or will be—edited in 2001. He blinked. That number was, indeed, the year of the book. A year that will come after three centuries passed. Unable to make sense of this joke, he looked at his weakened friend, eyebrows arched in silent surprise.

Lucca observed him and tried to smile, but he could not. "I've told you reality is one thing that nobody can understand fully".

"Why. Why are you showing me this. This makes no sense".

"You are one of my last tries. I want to make a deal with you. You can pick books from here. I give them to you, but please, just promise me that, on July 24th in 1704, you will stay at home. Just that".

"What kind of strange deal is that?, what happens at that date?".

"Something horrible. To you. Please....You never avoided it. Never. And I have no much time to repeat". Edward frowned, but nodded anyway. “You may believe what you want, Sir. But one thing is quite certain: reality goes beyond our own perception". He opened Edward's hand and placed a green handkerchief in his palm "and it can be challenged, always". Lucca turned over and kept walking, leaving the library behind. "I don't have wine. So, tea?"

 

* * *

 

 **Nowhere. Notime.**  
**The answer.**

 

He walked until finding the edge of the land, exactly in that place where the endless ocean started. This place was an arid beach, no plants or trees, only grey sand and ashy mountains in the horizon. The breeze was icy, able to crack his skin, specially around the scales where the cold was sharper. The calm waves of the ocean did not produce any sound, and its black surface showed no movement underneath. The void had eaten everything here. There was only a vast, dreadful solitude embracing everything.

In this land, night was permanent, and only a dim reflection of a red light, coming from a crimson star alone in the sky, illuminated the calm, silent waves of water.

This place looked like the end of times, or maybe its beginnings.

 

Exhausted, Lucca fell on his kneels over the grey sand and touched his left hand. More and more silver scales expanded over his skin and went deeper, encrusting into his weak muscles.

“A Seth's child?”

A dark deep voice came from his back. Terror took over his body as the image of ravishing yellow eyes opened inside his mind. A predator like no one.

Lucca turned over and observed a man in ragged clothes, bare feet, long hair. Despite the dirt, the man had a halo of sublime respect that did not match his scruffiness.

Squatting gracefully in front of Lucca, he leant on him looking straight into his eyes. The same eyes that had appeared in Lucca's mind seconds ago.

Speechless, Lucca barely swallowed his own words, paralysed by the power, the extreme dominance that those eyes projected on him. He was convinced that he wanted to become this creature's slave, that he would enjoy it, that he need it, because such role had always been his destiny.

“Oh. A Lilith's child”. The man finally said with a hint of disappointment. He stood up and all his power over Lucca vanished.

Blinking in confusion, overwhelmed by the feelings that had taken control of his body and mind a second ago, Lucca tried his best to get up too, but ended falling on the sand. Even though the silver scales were starting to affect his right leg as well, the real hindrance that was preventing him to stand up properly was his compulsive trembling.

“Where am I? Who are you?” He said, trying to focus his eyes.

The creature snorted, echoing in the silent and lonely beach, “Lilith's children are so foolish. They walk through doors without understanding what's behind them. Are you here by accident or purpose?”

“Purpose is what led me here, I guess". He blinked, observing the man whose shallow smile displayed long fangs. "You are the Dark Father, right?. The damned creature who spread his curse upon humans".

His eyebrows raised. “How brave for a mortal thing to use such hard words" he chuckled, his tone suddenly tinged with fondness , "all of you share that rebellious and cocky feature from her".

"They are not hard words. If the story is true-"

"If..". The creature muted Lucca and approached him looking down. His long hair falling gracefully around his face frame. "The only terrible curse ever unleashed was by the One Above, and it was the Creation of loneliness". The sound of silence deepened in Lucca's ears, humming in trance. "Why are you here, little thing?"

Lucca remained in silence for a moment. The creature seemed not to threat him any longer, so he could take advantage of this temporal good predisposition. "I need an answer. How I can release one of your children?. He is not a wicked animal like the rest".

The man raised an eyebrow. "Animal?. The rest?. What a mouth you have. To speak so freely before someone who can destroy you with a blink of an eye". He crouched and touched Lucca's face, caressing his silver scales as his fingers turned into claws on purpose. "You certainly remind me of her. Such fire burning her from the inside, to the point to burn her own flesh. Ah, so many mistakes have been made". The man caressed the corner of Lucca's eyes, forcing his magick to activate, and his pupils glowed in green. It was just a silent warning meaning that Lucca had no control over his own powers. Nothing but this creature was the Master here.

"You cursed them. You must know how to lift it".

"If I knew how to stop my children, do you think I wouldn't have stopped them already?"

Lucca frowned, disappointed by that answer. A pretty mortal answer. "There must be a way".

“Why do you care?”. The man chuckled again and ended his gesture in a wicked yet fond smile. "You walk the same useless footsteps that your mother. There is nothing you can do to lift it.” He looked at the dark sea, silent for a second “Or maybe there is. But you'll suffer, you'll be shutting the doors of happiness forever, and in the end, you will be betrayed. My children are ungrateful creatures by nature". Lucca kept looking at the man straightforward, holding back his fear, failing in control his trembling. "The gift of life will be consumed, you may die, or may have a worse fate. What for?. You'll be left behind, as I did with her. She was lost forever, walking along the endless path of solitude. You can't change a curse destined to be. At least not without paying a terrible price".

"I don't mind. Tell me anything of use".

The man observed him, pondering his intentions". I wouldn't allow this if it were for anyone else. I would stop such foolery right now, by killing you. But you are doing this for a rare child that warmed my heart... Very well.... If you are willingly to pay, so be it. Show him what a rare gift, almost inconceivable, you have. Show him the sweet rain which falls down from the above, that rare gift of life which was always denied to us. I never thought this before, but now it only makes sense.” He stood up, smiling as if the whole situation were an irony “Only a Lilith's child could care for one of us... Only one of them.”

The man grabbed Lucca's hair, pulling the strands that covered his left side and lifted him violently. "You are paying already your reckless desire. Why, I wonder. Why?. There is nothing for you at the end. A damned soul has nothing to offer. And you will be left behind. As she was left behind". The creature's voice waved, as a long forgotten wound was reopened. “Rejected. Abandoned. Forgotten.”

The only answer he received was Lucca's resolve look.

After a second of intense silence, the creature softened his eyes. There was no one who could not desire to be targeted of all that was going to be offered.

He remembered Lilith, her beautiful eyes, full of life and desire and magick. He had wanted so much. He had taken so much.

The world was there to enjoy it in absolute freedom, not to save ungrateful creatures with egos impossible to satisfy. Lilith's children never understood that lesson.

This lost child's actions were not more different than a moth's guided by a useless wish, leading to an unknown longing for death.

"I've been trying to avoid his embrace, but it always happens. And every chance I fail, it costs me. I know what means to pay a price". Lucca whispered in pain, his scalp getting sore.

"Maybe it's his destiny to be a Child of the Night".

"I do not believe in destiny. Only what you make with reality".

The creature laughed, releasing Lucca who fell on the sand. Ah. Lilith's lips, indeed.

“Listen this, little thing. If there were a chance for lifting the curse, you will have to kill him in every world, force him to collapse all his own-selves into one, and prevent the event to happen to this one. Only this one should not become one of my children. You know exactly what all this means.”

Lucca blinked in shock.

Has this ever occurred to any _awakened_?.

In his following blink, the whole dark beach changed into a lake close to York city. That scruffy dark man was nowhere to be found and only an echo of his laugh remained in Lucca's mind.

 

 

* * *

 

 **Book of Revelations of the Dark Mother. Sometime.**  
**A page.**

 

_All curse the House of Caine!_

_Let them be consumed!_

_Salt be upon the tongues of Brujah, Tzimisce and Setite_

_who slaughtered the children of Lilith and Lucifer!_

_Lamentation be upon the tongues of Ventrue, Lasombra and Malkavian_

_who fired the tree and poisoned the rivers!_

_Coals be upon the tongues of Ravnos and Cappadocian, Salubri and Gangrel_

_who like beasts devoured the flesh of the children!_

_[…]  
Only Nosferatu and Toreador shall be spared, _

_for they veiled the faces_

_of the slain ones_

_In pity, they watered the lips of the children and_

_gave solace to the mother of the dead._

_All other shall be consumed with fire_

_and bent like pottery_

_and trampled like dung_

_and washed away like dust_

_like dust they shall be cleansed!_

 

_Caine laughed as he left my garden that day_

_his accursed brood smiled at what they had wrought_

_to their city of walls and slavery, they fled_

_leaving us to weep in the ruins they left._

_And I cursed them all_

_with ashes, with wormwood and with barrenness._

_With these things I cursed them._

_My love, my Shining One,_

_smote them with the blade of day._

_With the sunlight he cursed them._

_My hands smote the Cainites_

_with the agony of night._

_Together, we smote Caine_

_with the hatred of his childer_

_that he might breed enemies against himself_

_and he did_

_and we did_

_my love left me_

_upon midnight wings_

_our bond is broken_

_and all is ashes now.(1)_

 

* * *

 

 **USA. Brooklyn, Empire Arms Hotel . 2003  
Room 380.**

 

The Tremere had disappeared, and the small hints of the reasons behind their absence were disturbing. Strange rituals related to a change of nature to avoid Gehenna was everything Beckett had found. More information could be provided by the Nosferatu, who had disappeared as well, and the vast amount of ashes spread in all sewers was a terrible yet obvious explanation of their fate.

The Camarilla, as always, dismissed any possibility of Gehenna approaching them, but at this point, Beckett had started to doubt it. Of course it could not be a mere stupid prophecy, but certainly it was something else. All these years looking for answers had led him to step into the Hollow Ones, a group of humans and creatures that had far-reaching knowledge whose identities were kept secret. It was the safest way to exchange information of any kind. However, he had lost their contact due to the accident of the werewolf and the mage. The only remaining connection with such wild reality was Lucca Capaggio.

Beckett sighed in annoyance, rubbing his face. The artefact that could explain Gehenna, or so the rumour that had reached his ears said, was an atemporal book protected by time magic, hidden in the lowest and secret levels of Machu Pichu. According to his sources, the place was highly guarded, full of deadly traps against intruders and restless spirits protecting it. It was also said that it was stuck in time—whatever that meant—. Certainly, it was a place which cannot be accessible for anyone but a Lilith's Child, able to perceive that particular kind of magick and to activate its doors, and, probably, to go out of the place alive as well.

Beckett could brag all what he wanted to about his thaumaturgy abilities, far impressive for a Gangrel, but he knew very well he could do nothing with them in such place. He needed an _awakened,_ and one who could manipulate time to touch the artefact without destroying it.

While he was preparing his small luggage, Cesare appeared at the hotel room he was hosted, and kept annoying him, asking him for blood. It was about time, probably more than six months since the last time he fed this... pet.

He hated that begging state. And even more the euphoria that used to come later. And that permanent state of servitude. Well, he hated everything related to ghouls.

Disgusted by his own blood and by the effect that it would produce later in that human, Beckett cut part of his arm with his claw and let his blood drip over a plate. He offered it to Cesare who drank it and licked it in excitement, not so different to what a happy dog would do with their food bowl. Oh, he hated so much that image, a person slaved by this addiction, this compulsion and the peaceful satisfaction found in such chains. To know that Cesare had been a useless, depressed alcoholic did not smooth his revulsion. He never found a good argument to excuse the existence of ghouls beyond personal profit. And he hated to depend on someone else in such dirty terms. He needed to be away from his own ghoul for a while.

Beckett sighed, forcing some sense in his disgusted mind. He did not want to tell Cesare where he was going, because he hated as well to explain himself to those captive minds. However, it was wise to let Cesare know about this travel. At least this one. Beckett was used to travel alone, but this time was going to be different. If things were not going to be easy, if any mishap happened, better to make Cesare aware of his whereabouts, just in case he needed a back up plan. Just in case.

The next set of problems to solve was to find Lucca, to convince him to go with him, and to secure their safe return. Of course the whole idea had rooted an alarming thought in the back of Beckett's mind, telling him to stop this stupid journey because nothing good could happen with a human by his side, but he had no choice. He had to go with him. There was no Kindred with the same pool of knowledge and skills to perform the job.

Beckett let a deep sigh out, nervously. He had never travelled with humans. At least not on a long trip. His estimations considered that the travel would last a couple of days underground the pyramid—he was counting on Lucca to make them travel instantly to Peru—but if he kept in mind that something could go wrong—as it usually goes—the trip could be extended by one or two weeks. His mind was screaming in stress. He knew it. Of course he was calling for troubles. He was going to be several weeks, underground, with a human, _alone_. Well, more than a mere human, a mage. But for what mattered, it was the same: there was going to be a permanent, tempting blood pump echoing in his ears. He sighed again.

Then, he remembered that Lucca could blink and disappear whenever he wanted, and the thought brought him a bit of calm. But still yet, the image of a human, with warm blood and crutches, trying to survive throughout an ancient tomb full of traps with a vampire friend by his side made the whole idea less calming. He needed to plan everything. Carefully. Three, four, five times even.

This journey was, indeed, a stupid decision. But each time he said it to himself, he could not help but answer immediately that he had no choice if he wanted that artefact.

So, no use in complaining.

He took the green handkerchief he usually kept in his jacket inner pocket, and with a backpack on his shoulder gave Cesare his last orders: something about getting him some blood packages in conserving boxes; then, he simply left the hotel hoping he would find the mage once again.

He counted on his rudimentary Thaumaturgy abilities to amplify the remnants of the mage's power in the handkerchief and use them as a guide to find that odd house. It did not take more than a couple of hours for him to find himself in a forgotten alley of Brooklyn. In a corner, a wall had a door drawn with chalk that turned real under his touch. He opened it and smiled when scent of fresh peppermint and jasmines reached his nostrils. He always felt that house so familiar.

 

* * *

 

 **Peru, Machu Pichu. 2003.**  
**Buried alive I.**

 

He was able to found the temporal link, the small point that connects different spaces on a same universe, but it did not matter how much magic he infused on it, it simply did not work. He only became more and more drained. It was as if a strong, invisible barrier were surrounding the whole pyramid, preventing any use of temporal magic in a large distance. Those were bad news: they were, indeed, trapped.

It was a pity after doing so well so far.

After three days underground, they had found the artefact, that rare unique book floating in a glowing glass cabinet. It was surrounded by a strong magic, a sort of a sacred pure field that was sustaining—according to Lucca's words—a whole reality in that part of the world.

Something big and incredible powerful had been changed at that place, and that book was the only proof that such thing had happened once. To take it, and to alter the protection field in the process, would only cause a sudden fall apart of such reality. An event like that could have far-reaching consequences impossible to imagine at that moment; changing the fragile balance of the reality at that space-time point was out of question. As it was out of question that neither Beckett nor Lucca had reached that point to go back empty handed.

Therefore, the safest option was to read the faint book right there, while Lucca read it aloud, page after page, moving its immaterial sheets with atemporal magick manipulated with his hands that danced in the air. Beckett simply took notes of everything that had been read, satisfied for having chosen correctly the companion in this journey despite the risks.

However, there were cons. If Lucca were a vampire, things could have been faster. Unfortunately, they were unable to keep the same rhythm all the time. Lucca—cursed by his mortal condition and his fragile health—had to take small breaks quite often and sleep, submitting Beckett into a slightly anxious state. To waste so much time in mortal physiology functions when his hunger was increasing made him nervous.

 

Reading the whole book took them a week in which Beckett's blood reserves were consumed completely. It would not have been a problem if they finished their task without mishaps, but they found a disappointing trick by the end of the book. Its last sentences were written in an ancient language that Lucca did not understand but seemed easy to read aloud, and following the flow of the moment, he ended casting instructions to activate all the traps in the place at the same time. That was the last level of protection in that maddening tomb.

As soon as Lucca finished his reading, hollow sounds echoed behind the walls, inferring that a sophisticated system of cogs and pulleys were put into action. This was going to be a chain of traps hard to survive.

Beckett could have escaped just by turning into a bat and flying as fast as possible, but he could not leave the human behind. He did not think about it twice; he grabbed Lucca's crutches, lifted him on his back, and began to run through the confusing corridors.

Poison gas emanated from some corners, walls creaked in slow movement, sharp spikes popped up from the ground, and small knives flew against them here and there.

Lucca cast a bubble of slowed-time around them, helping Beckett to dodge the traps, but sadly that was all what his powers. Besides the traps, there was a thick powerful barrier all over the pyramid preventing him to blink into another world, or even into another place of the same universe. It made sense, if something so powerful had been changed in that place, and the source of that change had been magick, the only way to prevent a future undoing was to forbid any kind of magick—especially the temporal type—around the place.

 

The run that lasted what Beckett considered a whole hour, stopped when they reached an old empty room, full of dust and some human bones. Behind them, the walls of the corridor closed up completely and the room became locked from the outside. The only light in the empty place was a small wisp of light summoned by Lucca, floating around them. The flash-lights had died days ago.

Forcing a useless sigh, Beckett took Lucca down, helping him to sit on the ground. For a moment, his eyes were fixated on the human's neck, suddenly lost in that constant echo reverberating in his ears, but he stood up and looked around, trying to focus his mind in their current situation and not in the clear need for blood that the last effort had awakened in him.

He first knocked the wall softly and then, he hit it with the base of his hand, a bit angry.

According to Beckett's expertise, this was a cell room, a room where the survivors of the traps were left to die. The place had no windows or door beyond the closed corridor, which could only be opened from the outside, something that none of them were in conditions to do due to the heavy barrier preventing them to blink into space.

Nervous, Beckett inspected once again every inch of the dusty wall, wondering about their options. To die quickly by killing themselves, or to do it slowly, waiting for Beckett to lose his mind into frenzy due to the Hunger and kill his friend, just to become a crazy chimera after thousands of years later. All the options were about one of them dead, or both.

He sighed nervously, feeling the Beast trying to arise, scared by the options or maybe just delighted. He checked his mobile, just in case, but had no signal. Every hope lay on Cesare now.

 

* * *

 

 **Nowhere. Notime.**  
**One afternoon as any.**

 

Beckett was roaming in the forest of Santa Monica, enjoying the calm. He was not sure what he needed. Last events had been shocking, between the fake sarcophagus and now the certainty that Gehenna was closer not because ancient prophecies foresaw it but because magic had been misused repeatedly. Above all else, there was his complicated meeting with Cross, the young leader of the thin-blood. To meet the girl beside Jack had been quite unexpected and if there was a bad omen in these dark times, it was that. Nobody would have predicted that Gehenna was not only the end of times but also of the reasonableness.

He sat on a fallen tree trunk and looked at the sky. The beautiful moon was bright, full, surrounded by stars that could not compete with her. And at the corner of the dark mantle, far away from the faint reflection of the sun on the moon surface, a crimson light was looming, twinkling. Could it be magick too?. He remembered all the centuries that had passed, all the human myths he saw debunked, all the marvellous oddities in the world that were more real than any superstition. To think that, when he was human, the future was something not too far away and was not promising great changes, quite on the contrary. It was a future doomed to maintain traditions and antiquated ideas above all. His un-life allowed him to see beyond his limited imagination back then and taste first-hand all the pleasures—and the tortures—that these times brought. His mobile vibrated. Talking about tortures.

It was Kapaneus. He had texted to ask him about the use of the computer they had in their hotel room. Beckett chuckled. If modern times were challenging for him, who lived through them, he could not imagine what a shock had been for his ancient fellow. He answered writing a few instructions.

A cracking sound got his attention just after sending the last message. A rock nearby the tree trunk started to break itself, forming a large windows. The opaque stone became glassy, and its fractured lines smoothed. A window popped up, opened with the movement of the night breeze.

He smiled and jumped in, stepping on that familiar long corridor. He kept walking until reaching the last door to enter into the living room. He closed it, its border melted with the wall as soon as his hand left the knob .

"Was I being expected?" Beckett said when he saw Lucca walking with difficulty, staggering with his crutches and a pile of books that he placed on the table as soon as he reached it. It was as if the mage had never used the crutches.

The mage moved his lips in a shadow of a smile, and rested his bodyweight on the table while recovering his breath. "I was thinking how good was going to be to have some company".

Beckett smirked, realising the mage had no his typical silver scales on his left cheek. "I was probably thinking the same"

Lucca took his crutches and walked past Beckett, entering into the kitchen. He came back with a saucer and a teacup on his hand. "Would you like some refreshment?"

Beckett walked into the kitchen too, bringing to the table a teapot of hot water and a box of salty cookies, the ones that he had been buying frequently since he realised they were the favourite ones of Lucca. He moved easily in that house as a result of the usual visits he had paid to the Mage recently, to talk and to share information. Helping him to set the table for a tea was the least he could do when the mage had provided him a shelter from his troubles and boredom alike.

“I'm okay. I've already fed.” Beckett sat in a corner of the table, observing the many opened books spread on its surface while Lucca served his own tea and placed some cookies around his teacup, on the saucer.

The silence remained for a while; the mage checked some books that he had brought and left some opened around his tea. Taking a break of whatever he was reading, he sipped and met Beckett's eyes. “Did you get some information from the artefact?”

“Not much. I asked several friends to help me to translate what you read, but there was not much to learn. It says that Gehenna is indeed a real event, product of so many paradoxes forced by the Lilith's children. It claims that the withering has nothing to do with prophecies but, shockingly, with human activities using powers that they barely can understand.”

Lucca ate a cookie. “Hmph. And...what do you believe?”

Beckett raised an eyebrow. “I was expecting some insight from your side...” he chuckled, “But... If you are asking me if I believe in this chaos as a result of human meddling instead of a revenge crafted by a ridiculous Son of Adam... well, I've seen more disasters by the hand of ignorance than of gods.”

Lucca tilted his head, gestureless as he always was. “So, you got answers after all.”

“But I, too, have been sceptical about several things than later proved to be true.” He paused, scratching a free space on the table with his claws. “Answers? I got some. Even though I would have preferred juicier ones.” Beckett sighed, a bit more intense than he wanted to, and rested his back against the chair. “What do you think? Gehenna can be product of your people's powers?”

Lucca stopped chewing for a moment, lowering his eyes to the many books around the table. Gehenna was a mystery for any creature of this and the other worlds . “Hmph. Maybe”.

“Don't you know for sure?”

Lucca shook softly his head. Then, he focused on the book at his front, while both of them remained in silence. Beckett observed the man. He had more colour on his face than the last time, if the last time had been when they almost died underground. He was not sure, because this man was healthier than the one rescued by Cesare. In any case. It was good to know that all that blood loss had been recovered.

Pushed by his guilt, Beckett fixated his sight in some place on the table and spoke, “are you okay?”.

Lucca raised his eyes from the books and looked at him curious, not sure what he was meaning. Avoiding eye contact, Beckett simply pointed out his own neck.

“Oh. That. I am. Don't worry. It was long time ago.”

Frowning, Beckett met the mage's eyes. “What?. What did we do the last time we met?”

Lucca sipped. “We were in a tavern. And we talked about reality.”

Beckett shook his head, smirking. “That was centuries ago. Literally.”

“Oh.” Lucca put the teacup on the saucer, and observed the back of his hand. It had been just a couple of days ago that he replaced the cane by the crutches. His left kneel was unable to be bended any more.

Beckett squinted at the mage. “I really can't imagine how your mind and your time life works. How do you keep sane?”. When he finished the sentence he realised that he had asked the same question, centuries ago, to his friend Anatole. The more he knew about the mage, the more resemblance he found in Malkav's bloodline. “Never mind.” he whispered with a soft wave of his hand. There was some hint of ironic fate in the fact that he had so many friends among the Malkavians.

Lucca observed him in silence for a while, then he took another cookie, inviting Beckett to keep talking while he chew the mouthful.

“I've been thinking about what you said once. Well, in fact, what I asked you. And you never answered me directly”.

“About?”

“About love.”

“Mmmn, such a strange topic for us.”

Beckett titled his head to a side, smirking shortly. “You know how it is. The end of the world always makes us think in useless things.”

“Mn. Useless.”

Beckett made a click sound with his tongue as a sign of encouragement. “Did you read the ancient texts related to Lilith?”  
“Mnhm”.

“Love through pain. Through torture. Through the delight of suffering.”

Lucca met Beckett's eyes, for a brief moment, and then looked down. A trace of shame, almost guilt transpired in his usual gestureless face. “Kindred love is twisted and compulsive. Nothing alike human's, no matter what you think about it. I kept wondering why would you claim that both loves could be the same. It was in that moment when I remembered some passages from the <<Revelations of the Dark Mother>>. Lilith loved Caine like a mother, gave him shelter and horror, food and hunger, caresses and lashings. Her love was so twisted for him. And he paid her in the same way, by killing her children later. Maybe a Lilith's child confuses human love with Kindred love, because in the middle there is Lilith Love.”

They locked their eyes on one another, keeping the silence longer than it should be necessary. “Your point?”

“Maybe you never saw human love. Maybe you tasted Lilith's love. Which is closer to Kindred love.”

Lucca looked down shaking his head slowly, sipping a bit of tea. “It's funny how much faith you put on a book written by those who hated Lilith.” Beckett frowned. “The Book of Nod shows a different story. Right?”

Beckett hesitated. The Book of Nod showed Cain falling in love with Lilith, seeking her shelter and love, and learning all the powers that all his progenies developed later in each Bloodline. She had given him love, power and freedom. But Caine simply abandoned her later. Lilith's role in The Book of Nod was slightly different, indeed. “Then, what truly means Love for a Lilith's child?”

Annoyed, Lucca frowned at the book he was pretending to read. “Once again you are beating the bushes. What do you want to ask me?”

Beckett chuckled. “I think I'm just curious considering your fragmented-life. I'm probably trying to pry matters that don't concern me. But I've only experienced human and Kindred life. To think in yours...”

“Don't be dense. Just ask.”

“Does a Lilith's child know about love?, Have you ever...?.”

Lucca sighed, anguish transpired in the gesture, as Beckett could hear the heartbeat rising. He knew, indeed. That was not a reaction coming from a non-experienced soul.

“Shortly. With really few people. Parents. And a friend. Sometimes something more.”

Beckett frowned. “How do you do it? To live over centuries, and see them die”

Lucca's heartbeat increased even more. He swallowed heavily. He looked at Beckett with conflicted eyes, eyebrows twisted in pain.

“How do _you_ do it so?” Lucca asked, mirroring the question. That annoying habit that the mage had. “For you are immortal.”

“But Kindred. We do not have... those feelings.”

Lucca locked his eyes on Beckett who did not back. The silent fight in revealing the truth under layers of self-excuses became obvious. There was no way to get used to it. It was just tiresome, exhausting after some centuries. At some point, it was better to forget about emotional links. “That's a lie”. Lucca whispered.

Beckett chuckled, breaking the eye contact to look at the ceiling for a moment. "Well, I'm a vampire, we’re all liars".

Lucca clicked his tongue several times. “Another lie”. Beckett raised an eyebrow, “Wouldn't such affirmation lead us into a paradox?. If it's true, then you are not saying a lie. If it's a lie, you are saying truth.”

Beckett grinned, showing his fangs and faking a playful annoyance, far away from turning into a threat, “Don’t over-smart me, kid.”

“Kid? I’m even older than you.” Lucca sipped his tea, shaking his head slowly, pretending offence.

“A human?”

“I was born in 1485.”

Beckett rolled his eyes. “But you are a cheater”.

"Well, I'm a Lilith's child, Beckett, we’re all cheaters". Lucca drank his tea, curving his lips in a shadow of a smile.

“You are all annoying, I give you that”. He chuckled. The tension of the dark topic withdrew. Beckett grinned realizing about a detail that was clear in his memories. "I don't remember telling you my name. Ever".

"Mn, could it have been another you, in another world. Maybe".

Beckett shook his head after a snort, "In all of them I pick the same name?"

"Is that so odd?. Your fate is similar in all of those world you live. So, choosing your name after a martyr who was unfairly murdered by the person whom he served is not odd at all. I call it coherence. Not all people are that way".

Beckett frowned, silent.

"And no. It's not hard for me to make a link. Saint Thomas of Canterbury was beloved by his contemporaries, and after a couple of centuries, by those who loved to read History in between lines". He sipped. “But I may add it's strange to pick a religious figure despite your... sceptical profile.”

Beckett was surprised. "It's really hard to make such link, specially for someone who did not live those times".

"I'm a bit from any time, with a lot of it for reading".

“Hmph. Still it surprises me". Beckett looked around, leaving a silence. "You have all the time of the world. How have you done it?... All alone for centuries.”

“Same as you.”

“No. I interact with far more people than you. And I can't control time. Do you have some friends of your own kind? Does someone else know of this house?”

“No.”

“Have you ever had childhood friends...?”

“Not sure. Jumping in time is not the best way to keep them. Until I was able to control my powers at will... decades passed by, and those who were friends once...well, they were lost.”

“But with such control... can't you return and use that time wisely? Even prevent their death”.

Lucca shook his head. “Not everyone exists in all planes. Not everyone meets me in them. Not everyone is the same thorough the universes.” he sipped. “Besides, all of them, no matter what I do, age and die. I can't control that. I always see them die. At some point I started to prefer not to care about them... they always... die.”

Beckett looked down, scratching the table with a claw. He knew what that meant. It was a common point between them. “Do you fear to forget them? Those who are gone...”

“No”. Lucca frowned. “Another way to heal is to forget. The present happiness is more tasteful, more real than a half-remembered past. When the past doesn't fade away over time, our self-pitiful minds resort to idealization. Perfect long gone memories are a source of despair. In that case, not to forget is the worst that can happen, because you lose not only the past—the real one—but also the present.”

“I can't believe you. Nostalgia is part of being human...” Beckett said with a slight horror in his eyes. That concept of memory encouraging oblivion was common among elders. And he hated it. To find it in a human was shocking.

“No memory will be as real as it was the past event, and there is no present that can rival with an idealized past. What's the point in keeping such bad habit?. Endless pain, frustration, and longing make no sense.”

“You truly don't like complications, uh?. What a pity. Where's the fun without complications?”

“Not everyone wants to become a Kindred with archaeological nostalgias”

Beckett smirked, shaking his head in disbelief. “You remind me any elder.”

Lucca raised his look suddenly, this time something pretty close to an offence shone in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

Beckett shrugged, then shook his head slowly, as he reclined his body on the chair, showing a carefree demeanour. “They become cold.”

“Well, aren't you one?”

Beckett grinned. “Technically. But I'm a rare gem”. Beckett smiled wider showing his fangs, trying to switch the topic. When the mage kept mirroring his answers, he knew he was getting close to a dead-end. "You jump across Time. I'm curious, have you ever met yourself ?”

Lucca sipped his tea and shook his head softly while placing the teacup on the saucer, “That’s impossible. Awakened have a unique characteristic throughout all the different worlds, there is only one of us across all universes.”

“Ah” Beckett blinked. “It's true. You told me that once.”

“There exists only one me, this one you are talking with”. Lucca said with sadness. “Just me, no matter the time or the universe. Lucca Capaggio, born in the 1400, child of Burakumin, who awoke at his thirteen years old and got lost in middle of Europe, wishing for a better life. The same one who roamed time and space to figure out what his powers meant, and to understand this tragedy of being lost in time; close to immortality, yet mortal and alone. That one, it's only me.”

“You read too many Victorian goth novels back in your time, I'm sure of that". Both of them chuckled "So, you are unique, but you met several different mes. Now I feel less than the rare gem that I thought I was.”

Lucca snorted. “I did.”

Beckett frowned and looked for inside his jacket, taking out a green handkerchief. “So, you are using this to follow some versions of me…. Right?”

“Now there is only one. You.”

“Huh?. Why?”

“Trust in me.”

Becket clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Wrong question, I see". He focused on the piece of cloth, twitching one corner of his mouth. Understanding the meaning of the handkerchief brought a new level of concern. "Am I a vampire in all those universes?” A bit of expectation, of childish enthusiasm appeared in his red eyes.

“From all the universes I've visited, there were few ones in which you weren’t Kindred. In those, you usually died young, under different circumstances: in a wood, in an accident, attacked by feral animals. In the rest of universes, you are Kindred. Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know what to think about it. It should be a relief…. but….”

Lucca frowned. “Tell me what you really want to know, or what answer you want me to say. Maybe then I will know what you really are asking me.” Lucca sipped, “What did you expect me to narrate?".

“I don't know. Maybe I was waiting to hear a normal life. A wife, children, promising career, famous work. To know that I've lived that, somewhere else... I thought it was going to be liberating. But...” he blinked twice, pressing his lips in a thin line, “A vampire. In all of them?" He raised his eyebrows and blew the few air that was still in his useless lungs. "My destiny was always to become into.... this?. The irony of my whole existence has just become thicker".

Beckett went silent, drown in his own thoughts, quietly unfolding the meaning of this information.

Lucca finished his tea and looked at a book open by his side while Beckett remained silent. Out of the blue, he read aloud.

_“My pain made me a mountain. / It burned me into ashes /and from ashes I arose.”(1)_

Then, they remained silent, accompanying one another mutually, knowing that their presence did not bother the other.

 

 


	5. Part 5

**Peru, Machu Pichu. 2003.**  
**Buried alive II.**

 

Beckett was worried about his friend. Lucca was rationalizing his last bottle of water, and his skin was showing the first symptoms of dehydration. His stomach was rumbling every hour. The mortal hunger and the weakness that comes from it forced Lucca to keep asleep frequently

Beckett, accustomed to eternity, to endless hours of being static in one place, observing a point lost somewhere in a wall, did not mind it. Of course a distracting conversation was good to kill time while waiting for Cesare, but it was better if the mage's needs kept at minimum increasing his already thin chances of getting out from there alive.

Despite hating to explain himself to his ghoul, Beckett could not be more grateful now for having told him. At least they had that chance. The chance for Cesare to realise that Beckett was not back after a prudential time, specially when a human companion was involved. Beckett only hoped that Cesare could realise there were problems sooner than later.

He looked at Lucca. Despite the faint light cast by that wisp, Beckett's eyes could observe him in detail. The dark circles under his eyes, the laborious swallowing not so often as it had to be, the decreasing heartbeat. Lucca's body was activating every biological mechanism that nature had provided him to last longer without food and soon, without water.

Beckett looked aside, focusing on his extended claws. There was always that last resource, too. A drop of his own blood and a silent plea for the mage not to become addict. He wrinkled his nose. It was horrible to do such a thing to a friend.

He looked at the ceiling. How much time that foolish ghoul would need to realise they were in troubles?. He took his mobile from the jacket inner pocket and played with it, flipping it in the air and catching it before falling on the ground. Its battery had died two weeks ago. It had been useless in a place like this, anyway, without signal.

One thought after the other increased his silent anxiety: first, Cesare had to realise that his master was in trouble but then, he had to travel to Peru and solve the traps. How much time all that could take?. It was indeed a bad moment for encouraging those kind of questions. The reverberation of that constant drum was penetrating in his mind, getting intense with every passed hour. The warm breathing body full of blood laying on the ground next to him, started to worried him when the third week was completed.

The effort of surviving the traps while carrying the man had unbalanced the estimated energy he was going to use with the blood drank in those weeks.

He turned into mist and floated around the room, trying to filtrate through a corner, a small separation in the walls, a crack, and protect his friend of himself. He only became more tired. There was no way out. He resumed his human form and sat in a corner, as far away from Lucca as the small room allowed him.

The mage had already cast many times some calming spells on his forehead, to keep the Beast at bay, but the trick was not going to last longer. It was getting weaker as its caster, just a delay for the inevitable.

Lucca's scent was now more intense than ever. Beckett's pupils were contracted, and his mind was starting to push him into the thought that his friend was more a meal than something to care about. The pressing, unstoppable idea that there was nothing more in this world than preys and predators. Beckett hated deeply when his mind played such games. They were games where the world had no more complexity and it become binomial, white and black, being eaten or eat. A shade of guilt squeezed his soul. Of course by now, after so many decades of the same nightmare, the guilt was more like a vexation, not an overwhelming emotion. Pretty much as a mosquito in a summer night, irritating and small, but still yet hard to ignore completely.

Beckett swore aloud, angry for all those small annoyances that in separate ways were easy to deal with, but together became a challenge. He clawed the wall, furious, hungry, frustrated.

The hit awoke Lucca, who laboriously sat against the wall, observing curiously at Beckett. "You OK?"

"Never been better. What more can a Kindred ask for if not being locked with a human in an extremely weak condition". Lucca sighed and let the back of his head hit softly against the wall. "I shouldn't have ever convinced you to come here. I knew this could happen. But still yet..."

"I'm fine" Lucca said in a whisper. Weakness was harder to deal with while awoken.

Beckett turned a bit and looked at him with extremely crimson eyes. His fangs were fully extended, and the tension of his body was a proof that he was barely holding back . "No, you are not."

"Don't over-react". There was so much irony in this situation from Lucca perspective. As if the different worlds plotted for a revenge.

Beckett focused back on the wall, avoiding to think in that man's scent, his flesh, his blood. He could also heard the rhythmical movement of the veins all over his body. "Over-react, you say. I've been killing without wanting to during more than half of my un-life. It's always an accident. It simply happens. A blink of my eyes and in the next moment blood in my hands. You have no idea what means to suffer this curse".

Lucca remained silent to share the gravity of what Beckett had said, then, immutable, he kept whispering, knowing a vampire ear was enough for him to be heard. "Did you regret becoming a Kindred?"

Beckett chuckled, "Never had much of a choice".

"Were you warned?"

Frowned, Beckett was surprised by the question. Of course, after giving a deep thought he understood the point of it. "I can't remember. Probably not". But he was not sure. Warnings, bad omens, hand readings, all of them were so ridiculously mystical, and his self from back then was so sceptical, that there was no way to remember. If there were some, they had been perceived as a foolish joke at that moment.

The silence filled the atmosphere. It was only interrupted by a cringing sound, claws digging deep into the ground. He was painfully holding the Beast back.

“You need to feed.”

Beckett, wide opened eyes, turned over once again and looked at the mage. He observed how Lucca opened his shirt and let the cloth run down along his right shoulder, showing a glimpse of how severe was the other side of his body: low his neck was covered with small, shiny silver scales. With fear and delight Beckett could not help but lick his own lips while the intensity of the mage's heartbeat increased. The blood under that skin had been dragging him mad for several days. This was why he hated so much getting close with humans. The book of Nod was, once again, right. There was nothing to share between Kindred and Seth's children outside the predatory bound. Everything else was destined to end in death. Beckett shook his head, forcing to clear his dark thoughts.

"No use in denying. You need this." Lucca said when Beckett's red and lost look focused on his throat.

Beckett closed his eyes and exhaled forcedly “Nonsense….”

“Would it be better to wait until reaching your limit?”

Beckett met the mage's tired eyes, frowning. He had a point. Reluctant, he walked slowly toward the mage, allowing him to cast another tranquillity spell on his forehead, this time, without effect. But Beckett did not say anything. Lucca was growing weak while the Beast stronger, angered by those anaesthesia spells and its sustained hunger.

Beckett knelt and observed closely those silver scales encrusted in Lucca's neck. He wanted to ask him about them, to know about those scales in detail, but the deafening sound of Lucca's heart, pumping blood that pushed through those veins was too distracting. He could smell fear in the air, and something else, but he did not care. The blood turning wild his senses and the Beast in the background of his mind were all what mattered.

He clenched his teeth, blinked, pushed the Beast back with his last remnants of strength, and observed his friend once more. “Are you….. are you completely sure?” he swallowed. “I can... barely...”

“We are not waiting until your needs take control over you, are we?.”

“No". Beckett whispered.

 

_Drink not of their blood, for they will ensnare you,_

_Keep wary of them, they are crafty.(2)_

 

A passage of the Book of Nod appeared in his blurry mind. This was something forbidden, but he could not care. The blood underneath that skin was making him crazy. He bended over Lucca, breathed in to enjoy the moment in its raw form, the smell of a living prey, without glasses or teacups as intermediaries. He could also sense in his own contained frenzy state how the mage was preparing himself for pleasure. His heart beat faster, his gentle hands were grabbing Beckett's jacket, letting escape some low moans when the tips of fangs caressed his neck. Fear and expectation. Desire and curiosity. The prey was offering himself willingly expecting delight in return. What the mage did not know was that there was nothing of pleasure in a Gangrel bite.

  

Slowly, trembling while controlling the ravenous beast that was whimpering crazy within his mind, Beckett deepened his fangs into that warm skin, as gently as he could, and finally drank. Ah, relief.

The mage squeezed the jacket as a reaction, took aback from the sudden pain.

As Beckett fed slowly, the mage started to scream and push him away, desperate and in deep pain. Beckett was sure that the prey was perceiving how the beast was not only feeding on him but also taking control over him, abusing him, filling every corner of his magical body with a lewd terror and despair. Beckett knew perfectly the despondency of the situation, he had experienced it first-hand centuries ago.

Strongly, Beckett pressured that body against him, deepening the bite, immobilizing the body that kept struggling in terror.

The taste was particularly full of vitae, or magic, and unlike other times, warmth. This was a unique. It was not as if this were the first time drinking this particular blood—he had done it several times by now—but never from a warm body. It left a different taste wake in his mouth. Blood warm had a particular appeal for any hunter.

Beckett played with that neck, like bored predators play with their killed meals, tasting it slowly, biting several times in the same place just for the pleasure of the game, shaking his head a bit to tear the flesh, forgetting the place and the time .

 

Forgetting the time.

 

Time.

 

The fact came to him as a sudden realization. Beckett had been feeding on for too long when the Beast receded and he finally realised that those gentle hands had been fallen at the sides, the screams had been drown in something that seemed to be a painful moan, almost a death rattle, and that tortured body had been completely relaxed for several seconds. Horrified, his consciousness returned stronger, pushing the Beast deep in the back of his mind once more, and looked with horror at the pale face of the mage in his arms.

 

What had he done?

 

Was he dead?. Had he killed the only human friend—or whatever the mage could be for a Kindred like him—?

Hesitating, he cut his own wrist with his claw and drew it near the mage's mouth. Cesare's image crossed his mind and made him stop. He could not give _this_ to him. He could not thank with _this_ all the favours and long pleasant meetings around a teacup and a cup of blood that both had shared. What kind of friend could he be by giving this curse. This permanent nightmarish fight against the withering of his own soul.

Beckett closed his eyes tight, trying to focus his thoughts, but he was too drunk after drinking that amount of intoxicating blood. His head was light. His hand moved alone, opening the mage's mouth. All what was needed was a drop of cursed blood.

 _"Embrace not the blood of the Enlightened"_ he whispered.

The book of Nod forbade this, but Beckett had been losing so many friends recently. It was true that the majority of them were Kindred, and at some point, Beckett had made peace with the idea that sooner or latter he would lose them anyway. If it were not because of the Sun, it was always going to be because of the decay. No Kindred was free of the decay of their own soul because Humanity was truly hard to keep untarnished over the centuries.

But this was different. Lucca was different. Losing the mage, a curious immortal mortal, by his own hand, in this animal state, barely recognizing him as something superior than a meal, was too much for Beckett to bear. He had lost so many, by his own, deformed hands.

The dizziness was growing, making him unsure of his own action and thoughts. He looked at the dead body in his arms, confused by the overwhelming horror of his existence. All the questions and personal horrors he had always put aside over the centuries, to avoid thinking on situations impossible to change, came all of the sudden. What was the point of Kindred?. What were their purpose?. Why this lost of control?.

He kept his wrist suspended in the air, close to Lucca's mouth. A drop of blood fell on the mage's cheek, and only in that moment Beckett finally could perceive a soft breathe and an echo of a weakened heartbeat. He looked, unfocused, at the body, and checked the mage's pulse by pressing his bloody fingers against his throat. Under normal circumstances he would not have needed to do it but he was afraid that his light head was tricking him. But no, it was not an illusion. Somehow, that ill, feeble body had endured what most humans could have never done. There was so much power under that image of frailness. A power worth to fear.

Beckett wore off his jacket, rolled it like a pillow, and let the mage rest on the ground. There was nothing more that he could offer.

 

* * *

 

 **Peru, Machu Pichu. 2003.**  
**Buried alive III.**

 

The first thing he felt when he awoke was a soreness at the side of the neck. He rubbed the zone, triggering a sharp pain all over his body, remembering the terrible experience in a blink of an eye. He had been dying in Beckett's arms before everything went black. He looked around with horror. The anti-magic field surrounding the tomb and his exhaustion confused him. He could not sense his own magic, that power that had always been present in his soul, and a certain degree of shame reached his confused mind.

"I'm deeply sorry", Lucca heard before recognising that sombre figure in a corner. The apology made everything look worse.

Lucca panicked, observing his hands. His lack of magick could be due to his exhaustion but also it could mean... "No, no. No, no, no, no". He touched his mouth, desperately caressing his teeth, expecting to find fangs. He did not. 

Beckett laughed softly. "Don't worry. I didn't do... That. I almost killed you. It's true. For _that,_ I'm sorry".

Lucca let a deep sigh out, and all the tiredness that he had not noticed due to the panic came back in few seconds. His body lay down again on the floor, and kept looking at the ceiling.

"I'm... really... sorry"

Lucca heard the sad tone in Beckett's voice and observed his dark figure, a highly contrasted chiaroscuro at the corner, red eyes transpiring guilt and a bit of confusion due to the light drunkenness. "Don't worry. You didn't kill me. That's what counts". Lucca said lower than he wanted to.

Beckett simply stayed quiet, disturbingly motionless, looking at him in the distance of the small room. "Really. It's okay" Lucca insisted.

"No. It's not. How long until it happens again. You have no food or water. You are ill. And I've drained you. You won't survive next feed". He knew it was not going to take long. That was true. All his journey seemed to end here. And what for? For a stupid book that had the most confusing message about Gehenna. He remained in silence.

“That hurt like hell.” Lucca ignored his friend. “Next time remind me to bleed into a glass. I thought being bitten by Kindred was about pleasure and lust.”

Beckett snorted. The joke lightened the atmosphere. “Sorry for not being your Toreador fancy vampire”

Lucca made a sound that seemed a clumsy short laugh, “Does it depend on the bloodlines?”

“Mnhm. Kindred are predators. My kind is honest on that sense. There is no point in hiding that during the feed.” Lucca observed him. It was always strange the way Beckett used to pronounce that word. Predator.

His voice had a strange inflection, a sad tone, even a bit of guilt slipping between words. There was truth in them. A raw, hard to swallow truth, something that Beckett kept remembering, repeating, reminding it to himself just to maintain some sanity or maybe, just to keep honest to himself.

Beckett had been a young scholar who blew up the ground where he was standing on, just because of the truth; he had preferred to destroy his promising career and to question a prestigious institution before siding with falsehood. He was a man who never avoided the truth, who always accepted it, embraced it beyond the pain and the loneliness that it could embody. Yet, he kept reminding himself his current predator nature. A repetition that hid the unusual desire of denying the truth in a man who gave his life for his intellectual honesty. Thus, this was an endless lament.

Lucca rubbed his neck, close to the shoulder, where fangs had left a deep mark due to the several bites. Certainly, the pain and despair he felt in that moment were not like anything he had ever experienced. His awakening had never brought him the intensity of such emotions. The feeling of dying combined with the struggle for releasing while the beast consumed you alive, was terrific. But he also remembered the seconds before that nightmare, when the man lent over him and strands of his long hair touched his face. The smell of dry ground recently wet. The scent of fur.

He looked at Beckett more impressed now than ever. All that visceral urges and violent need to kill, overwhelming mind and soul alike, were a personal hell that Beckett had mastered over time. He had controlled it by himself, alone, and allowed him to stay there, sane, with a human still breathing despite the recent maddening feeding. How immensely powerful soul that man had?. Lucca twitched his lips. What an invincible awakened he could have been under different circumstances.

"I wouldn't have forgiven me, had you died".

"Well, I’m not dead".

"Yet".

Beckett straightened his back against the wall and drew back his head, closing his eyes. He remained there for hours, without the slightest movement. Lucca kept looking at him, trying to imitate that immobility, but his breathing kept ruining the pose. After a while, he fell asleep and regained consciousness hours later. He found the vampire in the same exact way.

After the small rest, Lucca felt some relief, and whispered "Doesn't your body hurt in that position? For so long?"

Red partially glowing eyes looked at him. "No. I'm not a human".

Lucca stragtened his back, sitting on the ground properly. He was still thirsty and wildly hungry. He stared at Beckett who raised an eyebrow, curious. "Do you really believe that?".

"Mn, I know these are modern times, and we are broading definitions and such… but still yet I don’t think that old dead creatures who need to drink blood from the living in order to survive should be considered human".

"Humanity is not just a matter of living".

Becket rolled his eyes, "spare me any terrible lecture that I've already told myself in the last two centuries". It seemed that Beckett did not want to discuss the topic, or maybe he was too jaded of the same endless arguments he used to wield to convince himself without success.

“You repeat that a lot.” Beckett looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but now, annoyance was transpiring his face “do you long for your human life?”

Beckett sighed heavily. “It's been so long ago".

"That doesn't answer my question"

Beckett locked his eyes on the mage, trying to look threatening, but it lasted for a second. "You need to understand... What drives my kind to feed is so overwhelming that once you experience it, no memories of other desires remain. Nothing can be compared to it. There is only…. The Thirst”

“But you enjoy other things than feeding.” Beckett remained silent, sighed in annoyance. “Things from your human time...What did you use to do when you were alive?"

Beckett squeezed his lips. The question hurt, or maybe that was what Lucca thought. "It doesn't matter".

Hurt. Longing. Nostalgia.

Lucca remembered that gentle man in Oxford, proud and acid, smiling broadly while his eyes showed a whimsical tint. What colour were those eyes?. Lucca could not remember. During so much time he had seen them red, glowing in fury, lost in a violent, animal fear. They were the mark of his eternal, secret fight within. “Would you like to return?”

“What's the point in asking me about it?. I don’t like wasting time, thinking in useless possibilities that were lost. It's impossible to return to that point of my un-life. There is nothing more to think about it. Period.”

Lucca observed Beckett, remaining silent.

That had touched a sore spot.

“How was your embrace?” Out of nowhere, the question reverberated in the morbid silence of the room.

Surprised, Beckett frowned at the mage. “Jeez. What the hell is happening with you?. Please. Being close to dead makes you chatty and more annoying than usual?. Who would have imagined...”

“Come on”

“That is a… delicate matter to inquire. You can't go around there asking to every Kindred how their Embrace was… it's a personal... traumatic experience…"

"Indulge my curiosity. Call it a confession to the dead, for my chances to get out alive from here are quite low. Sharing a private secret wont hurt, right?. Besides, we don't have much to do anyway, trapped as we are. And here, between us, you are the only one who can talk without needing water". he finished his sentence swallowing heavily, probably faking the severity of it.

Damned Lilith's children, crafty trickster. Beckett forced a deep sigh, and looked at him with his mouth twisted in disapproval. Lucca could not avoid to smile slily.

"Very well. You win, but just because I let you do so".

"Much obliged"

Beckett shook his head softly, and then spoke, "As you may know, we become the type of Kindred that sired us. In my case was a Gangrel, and, needless to say by now, it was not a gentle experience in the slightest. The Gangrel kiss doesn't taste to an overwhelmed pleasure. Far from it. You have a pretty accurate idea of it by now". He forced a cheeky giggle that did not last, the dark mood prevailed once again before continuing. "I was in a forest, and that... creature attacked me. I fought all what I could, but... it won. Everything was fear and despair; I was doomed, hopeless, alone. The whole darkness spread in my mind suddenly. I suffocated with blood. Mine or that beast's, I can't say. Then, I reached the bottom of what a human can, and from there…. I fell. I fell even more, deeper, quicker, into a desperate, animalistic state". He sighed looking at the ceiling "My... Sire left me after he turned me. I didn't know what had happened to me, and what I was. My consciousness disappeared sometimes in brief lapses, and all I could see was death, blood, slaughter. Every sudden awakening was followed by another lose of consciousness. It was a maddening cycle that was transforming my body and disfiguring my mind". He looked at his own hands "I smelled like death... I smell like it. I taste death. I... I am death. Whoever I were once, died in that forest. Nobody is the same after that experience. Nobody is the same after their Embrace”.

The words drowned into a morbid silence. The only sound echoing to the walls was Lucca's slow breathe. After some minutes, Beckett broke that silence.

“Now your turn. I'm done of talking about myself. About Kindred. Explain to me some mysteries of your kind.” Beckett suggested. "and don't dare tell me that shit about water, I saw you doing some magic on your mouth"

Lucca snorted. "So sharp." Indeed, he was using calming spells to lower his anxiety, making him feel a little better. But they were not as good as it could be real water in his mouth. Puting aside the thought of water, he looked down, “What could be mysterious for a Kindred. We are mere humans that happen to have a bit of magick. Nothing more.”

“How was your awakening?” it was just fair to ask. He never had the opportunity to listen such experience before. This time was as good as any. "Is it like the Embrace?"

Lucca breathed deeply. “No. It's traumatic for some, though. Mainly for those who can jump in time and space. Awakening was not particularly clear to me. It was all about... being confused. Living confused. It was so long ago and so recently as well… and still yet, confusion is all I have in my life. ”

“I'm listening”. Beckett stared at him, intimidating even though he did not mean it.

Lucca moved his painful body a little bit before starting. "Muromachi time. Burakumin family. My father was a leather-worker. My mother too. My life had always been about killing animals, skinning them, and giving the cured leather to my father. Nothing more. Every day the same". He looked at his feet, smiling in that stiffen way that time and loneliness had etched on his gestures. "I always wanted to wear shoes. Proper ones. The ones you don’t feel cold".

Beckett frowned at him. Of course he would not understand. It was another century, another place, another society.

"One night, walking to home alone, I felt something. The street changed. Suddenly, it was daylight, the moon had to come yet, and people in the streets stared at me. Their faces were different, weird. I asked them why they were looking at me. They didn't understand a word. They spoke a strange, strong language I never had heard. I ran away. For days I was jumping between countries and times. No familiar faces or places. I couldn't even talk to them. After a while, the jumps stopped, and I got stuck somewhere. I had to live in the streets, barely survived. The violence back then". Lucca sighed deeply "The worse used to be when such horrible things happened in loops. I kept living them over and over and over. One day, a mature woman found me in an alley. I can't remember what time it was exactly. My best guess: around 1290, Holland. She spoke in my language. And I cried. I had been mute during so many decades that I couldn't speak at first. I had got used to nobody talking to me, seeing me. I was so..". Lucca sighed once more, trying to release all that memories that despite the centuries, they had the same effect as if they were fresh. "I was so dirty, with bare, wounded feet. I was starving, I was hurt. She took care of me".

"Strange good luck you had there".

The shadow of a smile curved Lucca's lips, "No. She was part of the missionaries. Christian priests and followers who, besides spreading their religion within my land, wanted the money they could get there. She knew my language because one of the missionaries who had returned years ago taught to her. She wanted the business to flourish, so she was writing the first manual of Japanese for her people. And I was exactly what she needed to polish it".

"So charitable" Beckett added not without a cynical grin.

Lucca shrugged, "Christian charity" he said with a complicity smirk to Beckett, "but it was useful for me at that moment. I finally could have hot food, a bed, a bath. All that just by sharing my knowledge of the language. It was better than living in the streets. Of course I never told her I was Burakumin". Lucca smirked slyly. Beckett frowned, not knowing the meaning of that, so Lucca explained, "The lowest of the lower classes. Barely educated. Most of the time I didn't know the words she asked me... or how to write them. So... I made them up."

Beckett laughed. "So you were part of the first book of Dutch-Japanese in the History".

"Of course it never had my name. Christian charity, I told you".

Beckett snorted, "Seems fair."

Both of them remained a moment in silent, still with a shadow of a smile in their faces.

"Your powers stabilized at that time, but how did you learn to control them?"

"Once I learnt some languages, and could speak with other people, I met an old man who was like me. Able to control time and space. He made me understand why sometimes I was stuck in time loops. He taught me all what I know about my powers and their instability. He died after a couple of years, he was too old and ill when I met him. He left me that house, lost in time, to never suffer again what I had in the streets. He is, was kind. It’s the only place where the instability diminishes, where our confusion disappears a little".

“Mh, now I realise you have been talking in a non-confusing way.”

“It must be the field. The present feels... present”

Beckett chuckled. That was the daily doses of Malkavian-like stuff he needed. He focused on the topic once again, "Why he died?, is that house not supposed to stop time? He could have lived there for-"

"He did, for a long, long time. But he got tired of loneliness and started to spend more time outside the house. I didn't understand him back then, but now..". Lucca stopped for a moment, gathering strength "I was his last disciple. He also inherited me his position in the Shallow Ones. The house brought some stability in my mind and the group was a source of infinite knowledge and learning for my rare powers. He gave me all the tools to control them. I'll always be grateful with him".

"Extremely long journey you had. Every awakened had it so rough?"

“No. Not everyone. But I don't know much about the others, I don't get along with them."

“why? You don't like competition?” Beckett smirked.

“I'm a hedge mage. They like to divide themselves into factions related to their main powers, educated in specialized circles. I've never trained in any special power nor in any focused group. And that makes you earn a great disapproval among the awakened.”

“And here I thought the Camarilla was too narrow-minded.” Beckett looked up the ceiling, processing the information. “we are pariah among our own.”

He kept thinking a while about the narration, a bit jealous of the awakened condition: mortal yet with all the time of the world to answer any question. Ah, what a wonderful thing to become into. But he shooed away the thought, there was no point in rooting it. "So, your people are not immortal?"

"Well, some, perhaps. But you need to acquire the powers of arch-mages. Only masters may have an extension of their mortal life because their deep relationship with their avatar"

Beckett frowned, "Avatar? What's that?"

"The source of our magic, and the essence which give us a purpose to fulfil in life. They are from beyond this plane and get attached to our soul for our whole life. It commands us to a great purpose and shares its strength with us in doing so".

"Ha. Imagine that. Your personal Beast". He grinned, displaying his fangs.

Lucca frowned, insulted by the comparison "Not in the slightest. It's a gentle presence, it doesn't want to control us. It gives us a purpose in life".

"And you fulfil such purpose by following its command, whether you like it or not. Whether you _want_ it or not".

Lucca frowned, keeping in silence.

Ah. Winning arguments was as delicious as always, alive or un-alive. Beckett chuckled softly. "Well, What's your purpose then? Or your avatar's".

Lucca observed him for a moment before speaking. "To bear a _certain_ Kindred until my death".

Touché. Beckett broke the morbid, serious silence and laughed aloud. The mage was not going to tell him. He got it. Better to change topic. "This power you control, whether it comes from this avatar or not, is enormous. You basically can do whatever you want to. That's why any other creature, child of Moon or Night or Dreams fears your people. Unstoppable power in humans, the creatures with endless desires..."

"You _can't_ do whatever you want. There is always a price to pay. The more challenging is your feat, the higher the price". Lucca rolled his t-shirt sleeve up and showed Beckett his left arm, mostly covered in silver scales.

Beckett observed that exposed metallic skin and wondered how long he had been talking with this mage. His interaction with him had never been linear. Beckett remembered some fragments of his past, sharing mundane conversations with this mage who displayed different degrees of his condition, realizing that, up to that very moment, he had never imagined that all the Luccas in his memory were the same; but from different times, interacting with his life-line over and over. It only could mean that the purpose of this mage—or his avatar, for what mattered—was deeply related with him. So, this mage was looking for something in Beckett, a secret purpose. Could it be?. Of course it could. After all, Lucca was a child of Lilith, trickster by nature, always trying to obtain what they wanted.

He stopped his train of thoughts and observed Lucca. Becket had never seen this deceiving behaviour in Lucca. The mage was odd, always closer to a Malkavian than a Magical Villain. It was hard to think about him as twisted as The Book of Nod described them. Or perhaps all that confused behaviour was a facade to cover an elaborated long-term trap?. Beckett could not believe his own thoughts. The mage had never deceived him ever.

He resumed his interrogation, "So you spent much time in Holland once you controlled your powers".

"No. It was not so quickly that I gained control over them. I had to travel in the usual way. I kept close of the missionaries, they were easy travelling everywhere". Lucca wrinkled his nose in deep disapproval. "I was finally free of their horrible mission when I established myself in Italy. I changed my name to Lucca there and spent several decades learning what the Renaissance had to offer me. Until I went to Britain and opened a book-store".

They remained silent for a moment. 

“Satisfied?” Lucca asked.

“Mn. Why did you go to Britain?”

Lucca's breath and heart-rate increased. “I decided to do... something.”

“About?”

Lucca observed Beckett for a moment, and then lay down on the ground once again. “Something personal.”

“For you... or your... avatar?”

“I don't know. You tell me. I went escaping heartbreak, wishing to fix it. Is that an avatar issue or do you think, it would be considered personal?”

Taken aback by the sudden aggressivity in the mage, Beckett remained silent.

“If that's all, I need some rest. If I don't wake up... It was a pleasure to meet you, Beckett.”

Beckett frowned while he heard how Lucca's vital signals lowered, keeping at the minimum. He drew back his head, resting it against the dusty wall, and observed the wisp, still floating in the air, weaker day after day.

Unable to see day or night, Beckett fell into oblivion several times, until one day his ears could hear footsteps. They were still too far away but they were the promise that help was coming. Cesare finally had arrived.

 

* * *

**England, Oxford. Forest outside. July 24 th 1704.  
The embrace.**

 

Werewolves and vampires were always a trend. Now more than ever. The myths spread by peasants were intrinsically tangled with academic research, and renowned scientists worked into narrowing the natural separation between common sense, paganism, and scientific knowledge. And the current situation did not help to keep the limits separated.

During the last months, several bodies had been found close to the river, floating on its surface or stuck in the bank rocks. All of them had severe wounds that were a clear sign of a violent assault. Strange and enormous claw marks, ripping off part of the flesh in these corpses, had breathed life into the popular imagery that reached the most sceptical academic circles: the answer of those murders was clear for everyone; werewolves. There was no other option. Even the university was now seconding the idea. Scholars began to develop a classification system to determine werewolves types according the marks they left on their victims' bodies.

"The hell of craziness this world has reached", Edward said walking through the forest while thinking the current situation of the academia. The Sun was still on the horizon tingeing the landscape in reds and oranges.

He had always thought about himself with pride. His scepticism had given him headaches but also a deep respect of the community, at least during the first times. However, since his last research, fellow scholars and authorities of universities started to cast doubts upon him and his intellectual honesty. They began to consider him a blind man, too driven by theory and books instead of facts.

Some rumours went so far to claim that he was jealous of his colleagues for becoming sharp enough to see the truth in myths. "The most ridiculous nonsense uttered ever. Edward Warren, jealous of someone else's stupidity?. Please".

Jealousy was the least of emotion that those researches inspired in him. Anger, frustration, indignation; maybe. But jealousy?. Not at all. But he was not a man that would stay passive before the broad range of emotions that, indeed, inspired him. No. He was going to destroy every stupid concept or trend that was infecting these times.

That was the reason why he headed to the deep forest, carrying a backpack with food, a tent, a weapon, and his notebook, a rare book of blank pages that he kept as a journal. Everything he needed to destroy this modern ignorance.

According to those ridiculous theories, during midnight, when the full moon was exactly in the middle of the sky, a large group of werewolves gathered deep into the forest, around a circle of fungi. That place was mystical, and it was where these werewolves were supposed to perform their rituals and played with their preys. A lot of foolishness to refute.

He walked for several minutes until finding the place. A glade with a big circle of fungi bathed by the sunset light-beams was hard to miss. The river was just ten or fifteen meters away, so if these scholars were right, if their ridiculous essays were minimally true, werewolves would perform the ritual or the hunt—that word changed depending on the author—in this exact point. After doing whatever they were supposed to do with their victims, they would feed themselves and dispose the bodies to the river. Edward wondered why such creatures would waste so much meat, but that detail had never got the attention of those supposed scholars. Indeed. The academia had forgotten its essence: to question everything, even it's own words.

 

Hours passed by, the full moon shone brightly in the sky, and no sign of wild mythical creatures appeared. Sure, some wolves and a couple of owls were part of the landscape, but nothing supernatural.

Edward checked his pocket clock. It was a quarter past three, and the critical hour had been passed long ago. No werewolves at sight, no bloody rituals performed with preys, no hunt. He could not help but draw a smirk on his face, self content that this situation was going to end as he expected: another case of myth debunk that was going to finish in a new polemical research of his ownership. Of course, he still had to spend more time in the wilds, to keep contrasting the ridiculous hypothesis of the academy with raw facts, before claiming victory completely, but nothing could stop him from tasting his results beforehand.

Having finished the work of the day, and feeling the tiredness wearing down his body, Edward arranged everything to rest into his tent, taking special care of a revolver. He was not afraid of vampires and werewolves but wolves or bears were another matter.

He checked the weapon for the last time before going inside the tent when a chill scratched his back.

Dreadful red eyes appeared in the middle of his mind, hungry and terrible. They stared at him from everywhere, paralysing him. A deep and terrifying groan reverberated in his ribcage. Immediately he extinguished the oil lamp and hid among bushes, waiting to be witness of the cause of such strange event. Measuring his movements, he grabbed his revolver and checked its barrel, never looking away at the deep, dark forest. His finger was firmly in the trigger, just in case things went out of control.

Suddenly, the whole world of sounds from the forest stopped short, everything went mute, except by one looming sound that could be heard as slow strides echoing in his mind. Those footsteps were followed by a guttural, animal groan that made every fibre of his body vibrate in fear. Edward wanted to believe this was just an elaborated trick of an occasional thief, but those red eyes he still could perceive in the back of his mind were telling him otherwise.

After a second, those footsteps went silent and the red eyes disappeared, giving him a moment for breathing, but such fragile peace did not last. An enormous bulky creature without presence jumped at him from behind. With nerves made of steel, far from panicking, Edward shot it. A whimper, close to a human cry, deafened him, and something wet and cold strained his hand while the heavy, bold figure fell on the ground.

Edward relaxed, knowing that now he could examine the body calmly. He looked for his oil lamp, but when he approached the body, the creature stood up with a clean movement and stared at him. The light of the lamp was dim in contrast with those red eyes glowing in the darkness, but it was enough to see that half of the creature's body was a wolf's or a bat's in enormous proportions.

Despite the danger, he kept admiring the specimen until the beast attacked him again, nailing his claws on a side of Edward's torso. He screamed as he felt the wound deepen, ripping apart his muscles.

He shoved the beast away and fled, but it jumped once again, and rolled on the ground with him, destroying the circle of mushrooms that was nearby. The moonlight was enough for Edward to see the beast in details. It was like an enormous bat, with red glowing eyes and hands that resembled wolf paws. His appreciation ended when the beast ragged his outfit and his chest, soaking him in his own blood. He fought with his arms and legs, but the beast was immensely stronger. It bit him in the neck, deeply and desperately, and started to suck. The fear and the pain were so intense that his body tensed to gather enough strength to reach a knife he usually hid in his boot, and stabbed the creature franticly. It screamed, giving Edward an opportunity he was not going to waste. He pushed the beast and ran away as fast as he could. However, his vision was blurry, and his breathe was ragged. The blood loss had been important, and the weakness was growing by the seconds, claiming his wounded body. He knew he would not last longer, but he kept running, despite the trunks and roots in the ground that were not making it easier.

Edging the border of unconsciousness, his mind started to play with him, letting questions arise that were not wise to ask under the danger he was facing. He could not help it but think if, after all this time, he had been the one being wrong. Because it was true, that monster, whatever it was, was not a natural animal, not even a living one considering he had already killed it once. Was that creature a werewolf or a vampire? He was so disappointed, so frustrated.

He had been wrong all this time.

_He had been wrong all this time._

He tripped off, and before touching the ground , the beast reached him, rolling with him all along the mud, to finally resume his bite without mercy. Edward tried to fight again but the blood loss drained any bit of strength he could have saved. Edward only could cry while the beast dragged him toward the world of nightmares and despair, sucking his life and exchanging it for fear, darkness, and terror.

He wanted to live a bit more, to enjoy life for a couple of years, to read more, to drink one more time in a forgotten tavern.

The horrific fear took over his body while consciousness slipped away slowly, and a tang of iron filled his mouth, burning his insides. He was dying. He knew it. Time had come to an end.

 

After despair, fear and terror, after being engulfed by darkness, emptied to nothing, drained of hope and emotions, he felt it. That madness that did not waste time in questions. An uncontrollable desire, the only one desire of all, the ultimate need. The Hunger. The Thirst. He had to be fed.

He opened his eyes abruptly.

Unable to understand-or even question- the red landscape at his sight, he ran through the forest, roots and branches scratching and hitting him but he could not feel pain. He felt nothing but the Thirst.

Blood thirst.

No matter why or how, he could only think in blood. He needed it.

_He needed it._

After some minutes of that anguished run, he found the entrance of a town from where the intense smell of future meals dragged him immediately into the unconsciousness. He could not remember anything but being faded away while a terrible Beast was all left inside him.

 

After hours of feeding, when the Beast finally retreated a bit from his mind, he awoke in his own restless body. His mouth was full of blood, iron tang deep into his throat; his shirt and pants, now rags, were soaked in blood, and they barely covered his inhuman legs. Oh, the shock he had when he saw his legs and hands twisted into fur and claws, and their muscles increased their size to bestial proportions. The fear that clouded his eyes did not end in the horrifying sight of his own deformed body. No. He looked up, to see where he was, to see where all that blood he was soaked in came from, and found a hellish view. Several lifeless bodies, completely drained, were spread everywhere. Men, women... Children. Those who resisted to feed his Beast ended butchered, with their insides out, dismembered, and their blood soaking the ground around them.

This massacre had not been done by anyone but him. And only by him. He knew it, as a small shattered fragments of memory came back to him just to maintain his torture.

He screamed, asking for help. He cried, scared of finding himself alone among so much death. Revulsion and fear were deeply entangled with the pleasure he had tasted hours ago. What was he? What was this monster he had turn into? Why nobody was here to help him?

He screamed as horror grew into another level when he saw his own tears of blood. And only then he perceived the silence. That typical beat in his chest, that monotonous rhythm that all living being put no attention on, was now gone. That gentle pump in his temples, absent. He gasped, losing his breath. Losing something he did not need any more. A breath he had never taken since he awoke.

Had he become a living dead creature? A peasants myth?. A child of a demon?.

There was some irony in his fate, almost poetical justice, but he was unable to appreciate it. Overwhelmed by the horror and the fear, his consciousness disappeared as the Beast took over him eagerly once more.

 

* * *

**Book of Nod. Sometime.**  
**A fragment.**

 

_And with that, the darkness_

_was lifted_

_like a veil_

_and the only light was_

_Lilith’s bright eyes._

 

_Looking around me, I knew_

_that I had Awakened. (2)_

 

* * *

**Italy, Florence. 1867.**  
**Another universe II.**

 

Beckett opened the window of the room. The view of the Eastern city was beautiful. Florence was still sleeping, delighting the last remnants of darkness before dawn.

He inhaled to perceive the scent of those wonderful flowers. The house had an extensive garden full of bloomed jasmines, which gave its sweet scent to the rest of the town. He moved the curtains completely to let that scent come in and returned to bed, where an exhausted mage was looking at him with teary eyes.

Both sat on the bed.

Silently, Lucca let his shirt slide down beyond his shoulder, exposing the silver scales that were taking over his left side of the body. Beckett's hand caressed them and ran along to Lucca's sore neck, which exhibited some marks of kisses and fangs bruises. His hand followed the curve of his jaw, went down along the middle of his neck, touching his Adam's apple, and ended at his chest, caressing the hardened left pectoral, profusely covered in silver scales.

"They are spreading all over your body" he said concerned. The mage locked his eyes on him. Becket always enjoyed that gesture. To be looked at without fear despite his terrific eyes, to be caressed despite his deformed hands, to be accepted despite his cursed nature.

"Consequences of ignorance" Lucca said resting one hand on Beckett's waist and the other on his wrist, caressing the fur.

Beckett closed his eyes for a moment before speaking, "You should forget all that. Live your life. I'm content with all the centuries I had."

"You'll have what was taken from you. I've promised you.”

Beckett snuggled close to Lucca’s ear and whispered “Its alright. I had enough. More than enough. It doesn’t matter any more.”

“It does”.

Beckett lowered his face to the neck side free of scales. Delighted by the beat echo in those veins, he unfolded his fangs, and, gently, he won over the natural resistance of the skin, trying to make the experience less painful and horrible than it was meant to be. He was not hungry, so it was easier to enjoy the taste and pleasure of the blood in total control. After some seconds, he heard a fear cry coming from Lucca that made him stop.

It was more than enough. A last meal, the pleasure of blood fresh in his mouth, with his Beast tranquillized by those kind hands that were holding him by his waist. He could not ask for more.

Both lay on the bed, surrounded by jasmine scent. In the middle of the silence, Beckett found peace in the gentle movement of Lucca's chest when breathing.

Using the recently drank blood, Beckett rose his body temperature, making it warmer than usual, and infused a fake sense of life in all his body. Human. He wanted to depart looking and feeling as human as possible. He had become a predator, sure, but his soul never had been. He had to be honest about that once in his un-life.

Putting Lucca's hair strands behind his ear, Beckett smiled and reached out to kiss him, like he used to kiss before turning into a cursed creature. Of course, Beckett always knew the feelings of the Mage towards him. Living creatures hardly can conceal their obvious vital signals going mad. At first he was surprised for being the target of those rare sentiments--Kindred were not made for them--, but when he understood, he did not mind it. If that was all what the mage desired, Beckett could not see any problem in offer to him what he could. The unmatching pleasure of drinking that rare blood made everything worthy. It was the least he could do to thank the mage for everything that he was risking without asking for anything in exchange.

Maybe now Beckett could understand a little bit the Toreadors, despite hating himself to think about it.

However, this was going to be the last human kiss, a bit more mixed with complex emotions hard to understand for his Kindred condition. Or maybe he simply did not want to understand at all.

And while the kiss lasted, and the sun raised peering through the open window, slowly, Beckett let himself burn into ashes in Lucca’s arms.

The vampire body turned into dust... And that was all.

The undead had found his end in this universe.

 

 

Silence.

 

 

 

It was all what remained.

 

  

 

 

That, and Beckett’s clothing on the bed, a red handkerchief he had kept wrapped around his wrist for long time, and a couple of sunglasses on the bed stand.

Lucca wiped out the ashes on his own face and tongue, and sat in the edge of the bed. The movement turned the ashes into small particles of dust floating in the air, clearly visible throughout the first sunbeam.

That was all.

 

 

God, _that was all._

 

 

Blood and ashes. Nothing more.

 

It was exhausting to be a passive witness of the thousands deaths of Beckett. He was not sure his soul could resist them. This time had been too much to bear, because he let himself get deeply involved. But... How could he not do it?. This Beckett, in this universe, had offered him things that no other Beckett did, that no one in his life did. This Beckett had been so grateful, so kind, so gentle. It was impossible not to get deeply involved.

He took the sunglasses and looked at them across the sunbeams, surrounded by dust particles dancing in the air. This universe offered him a side of that man he had never seen. But what for?. Now everything was just ashes.

He throw violently those sunglasses against the wall, and they fell to the ground asunder. Lucca regretted his impulse in the same moment he saw the pieces fly around.

Hurt but too tired to cry, Lucca stood up from the bed and gathered the pieces and the glasses frame.

He looked at them on his hands which were dirty of ashes and covered partially in silver scales that reflected brightly the sunbeams. He was so tired. So, so tired.

“I wish I could have saved you. Just you. Just now.” he whispered, as a sudden violent morning breeze dispersed the rest of the ashes everywhere.

* * *

**Nowhere. Notime.**  
**Visitor from 2018.**

  

It was a small living room, comfy enough for one person and an occasional guest. It was not usual for him to have visitors, and when he had, they did not stay for long.

There was a hearth with fire crackling softly in a corner, emphasising the warm colours of the place. It seemed to give music to the dancing steam over the hot tea cup he had in his hand.

Several books were open on the table at his front. He could not remember a time when that table were not full of books. More piles of books were gathered on the ground as well, forming towers as high as the table itself. That was the usual: fire, books, warmth, and tea.

This was his sanctuary, a place where to rest and recover, a place stopped in time. A place lost in space.

A knock at the door startled him, spilling a bit of tea on his notebooks. To have uninvited guests was more than unusual. This sanctuary could only be found by tracking his own raw magic. Some objects crafted by him could be used to find it, but they had to be charged with a lot of his energy first in order to be used by another mage. It was unthinkable that a non-magical creature could find the correct door of that house among the countless universes. And to have another mage at his door was nothing more than an omen of problems.

The knock insisted languidly, as if the last remnants of strength were all wasted in calling at his door. That worried Lucca.

With a painful groan, he leant on the wall, trying to spot his crutches, but they were nowhere. Most likely they were in his room, too far away for going there when that knock at his door sounded like the last one. Resigned, he took his old cane beside the hearth and walked to the main door with some difficulties

On the other side of the door he found Beckett, or maybe was it Edward?. Lucca blinked several times, confused. This man was not wearing his typical sunglasses, his eyes were hazel—ah, now he remembered that that was the natural colour of Edward's eyes—and his hands, at least the one that was supporting his heavy body against the frame door, had human fingers; no sign of claws or fur.

Lucca stared at him, his lips being slightly apart. Who was this man?. And from what time?

"I just wanted to see you". The man said with effort, out of breathe almost, dizzied. "There are no many friends left that I can count on by now. Gehenna... it's the end of times". Beckett offered him a piece of green cloth. That was the answer. The handkerchief had a decent amount of his raw energy to track him. Lucca took it and stepped aside letting Beckett in.

"I hope you don't mind me dying here. It's better than the alleys or into the ground"

"You can't die here. Worry not"

Beckett was a bit limped and stiffen, his movements spoke of an ill weakened vampire, even though his skin looked more alive than ever. He fell as a corpse on the sofa and drew back his head, enjoying in silence the pleasure that stopped time could give him, momentarily free of the sickening pressure of Gehenna. Lucca sat beside the sofa, unbuttoning his shirt and exposing his neck part free of silver scales. It already had marks of fangs and hickeys.

"No. No need". Beckett said touching the mage's forearm. "I'm not hungry."

"When was the last time you fed?"

"It doest matter."

"It does. Feed on, please."

Beckett hesitated for a moment. The marks on that neck suggested that the mage had offered his blood to another recently. He smiled, proud to think that, maybe, that other creature was no one but himself. Maybe a past one, or a future one. He liked to think that perhaps, there was still some alternative future in which he was alive, free of the effects of Gehenna, researching some of the countless mysteries of the universe. He focused on that neck once again.

Although he was not hungry, he was feeling specially weak. To know that a bit of this magical blood could provide him a relief of that sickness was tempting enough to accept it.

He bit once again, exactly where the fangs marks were, and drank slowly, finding delight in the process. It seemed that he was not the only one sunk in pleasure. This time, unlike the many others, Lucca surrounded him with his arms, squeezing his hands on his stiffen back, moaning and breathing heavily, not because of the pain and despair but the wild lust.

The withering had weakened even the wicked terror that the process naturally inspired. The Beast was ill and dying, deep inside Beckett. It did not care if it could prey on for the last time. Of course he was not going to complain, in fact, he was grateful to the weakness that granted him this absolute control on the Beast. Being as weak as he was, he was not sure if his will could be strong enough to tame it.

Beckett hugged back Lucca, in a silent gesture of gratefulness. If this was his last meal, he wanted to thank that this man was not Cesare. Lucca was not a slave too lost in his own compulsion. No. His last meal was a friend willingly to offer him his blood; it was by free will, it was through a mutual bond, it was the result of understanding the madness that immortality could turn into. No wonder why he was a Lilith's child.

Ah, the Dark Mother. The thought made him stop drinking and kissed gently where his fangs damaged twice, as a wave of vitae filled his body and diminished the sickness a little bit.

This must have been how Cain felt in his last, grey days, lost in forgotten arid lands, so far away from Heaven, with no tools to survive oblivion. And in such dark times, Lilith found him, got compassion of his sorry sight, embraced him into comfort, and awakened him. Like this mage had done to him. Metaphorically speaking.

Now the myth seemed more real. As real as Gehenna. With the recent chain of events he was more inclined to believe, to truly believe, the magnitude of the myths. So the question arose by itself. What was the point in saving Caine, a damned soul, a wicked, tortured creature?. What could possible caught Lilith's interest in him?. What interests had she hidden?. Compassion? Pity? Mercy?. Could someone, someday, know it?.

Beckett licked the small drops of blood that ran down along the shoulder, and rested his chin there, exhausted but peaceful. He was grateful that someone cared enough to keep him sane, to help him to remain human, to protect the small bits he never gave up. If this was the end, he wanted to leave as humanly as possible. He did not want to die a filthy animal killing wildly for blood, just to live an hour longer, as it had happened with the many leaders of the Camarilla.

He drew back a bit to see Lucca, who had his eyes closed, still lost in the intense raw desires that the bite inspired. While the mage recovered, Becket kept thinking about the myth a bit longer.

Beyond her motivation, Lilith must have meant something like _this_ for the Dark Father, maybe she had offered herself to an ungrateful man out of compassion. Perhaps it was mere pity, or true mercy. Either way, History had treated her so unfairly. Maybe Lilith, like this mage, generous and forgiving, opened their magical garden to a pariah like him, like Caine, just because she found another creature of God abandoned in the vast ocean of loneliness. "Thank you. For all what you've done for me. Always" Beckett whispered. Lucca squeezed him a bit more and let a sigh out. "I've been so wrong twice in my life. Gehenna is real. It is."

Lucca finally opened his eyes, and tried to stand up "It's okay. You are safe here" He felt dizzy for a moment, but Beckett caught him before his legs failed. Gently, Beckett gave him the sofa, and remained there, pressing a hand on his shoulder. The mage was too pale. To feed twice in such short amount of time so close one from another had exhausted him.

Lucca held Beckett's forearm until the dizziness left, focusing on that hand that was now so human. Unconsciously he reached those hands, and touched them in a hesitant caress . They had no fur nor claws. Just human hands, warmer than he remembered.

"Gehenna is turning you into a human again". He tried to smile but it had been so long ago since that gesture contracted his face. He was so rusted in comparison with that man beside him, older than him in days lived at the real pace of time, and still yet, so fresh.

Beckett smirked, "The only thing that Gehenna is doing is killing me. Well, even though I'm already dead."

Lucca tried to reach the table but stumbled. He hissed at the deepening feeling of scales nailing his skin. They were almost covering all his left side of the body. He was also weaker, and tired. Extremely tired. Thankfully Beckett's speed was enough to catch him and help him to sit in a chair.

"I've fed too much. I'm sorry" he said. Lucca simply shook his head as if none of that were important. Beckett took another chair and sat beside him, placing his hands on the table. "I've came here to thank you. You are probably one of my old friends alive. Ancient friend who ironically is a mortal". He chuckled enjoying the soft contradiction in that statement " I love when life is so full of irony."

"Do you trust in me?" Lucca asked, caressing the back of those hands that were resting on the table surface.

Beckett raised his eyebrows. By now he had become more or less familiar with that stuck question that the mage used to throw at him. He forced a sigh, and looked at him "Can you doubt about it if, from all the places I could go to wait my final rest, I've came here?"

Lucca looked down, appreciating the words.

"I also came here to give you important information: Caine is real. Caine is..."

"I know". Lucca whispered.

"What?. You... Knew?"

"I've fallen sometimes in his realm, or in a realm that seemed to be his home"

"Why did you never tell me?"

"Had you believed in me?. I've been telling you always, in different ways, about the reality, its layers, its complexity. You just never believed in me before... But now. Now it's different. Right?"

Beckett frowned, and his hazel iris shone. So had that always been the meaning of that question?. He pressed his temple with his fingers, regretting his stubbornness.

"I should have been wiser. What's the sense in living for so long if your mistakes remain the same?."

"It doesn't matter now. Everything will lead to where it has to be led. Hopefully"

Beckett did not understand the mage's words. As usual. He simply looked at his hands, resting on the table, as the mage gently caressed them. The caress changed from random strokes to a pattern made with his forefinger. A wake of green steam seemed to appear on his skin, taking the form of a strange P with a lower bar. Beckett observed Lucca, intrigued.

"We need to go to a certain place. Now". Lucca said.

"Where?"

"I need you to bring me my crutches". Lucca moved his eyes in direction of a half opened door, "There"

Beckett stood from the chair and abandoned those pale hands on the table, squeezing gently Lucca's shoulder while passing by.

He opened the door. It was the bed room, simple in furniture and full in books spread on any surface, piled up in corners, and opened in marked pages. Avoiding to step on them, Beckett took the crutches from the corner of the room carefully, and when he intended to return, his attention was caught by a collection of sunglasses exposed in a extremely well-arranged cabinet. Those were the same type of sunglasses that he has always used. Or at least until the withering weakened the red glow in his eyes. Each of those sunglasses had a label on it that seemed to be a date, even though certain years were strange for him.

On the top of the cabinet, there was a transparent crystal box with the remains of a smashed sunglasses. It contained the frame alone and pieces of broken dark glass.

Beside the cabinet there was a mess of red handkerchiefs that he recognised as the same type than the green one he always had with him. He frowned. He took the small crystal box, a red handkerchief, and the crutches, and returned to the living room. He placed the box on the table, in front of Lucca who looked at it with silent sadness.

"What's this?" Beckett said

“A pair of broken sunglasses”

Beckett grunted. He hated those answers. "You know what I mean. You have hundreds of them. As many as these", he placed the handkerchief on the table surface.

Lucca kept looking at the box like in a trance. His silver stiffened fingers caressed its edges. "Things that I had to do".

"Red ones. What means?," Beckett blinked twice when a recollection hit him, "time ago, when I met you for the first time, in the Hollow Ones. You gave me a book with a green cover and told me to avoid the red ones... Red. What this colour code means?"

Lucca kept silent as his heartbeat increased. Beckett frowned, between annoyed and curious about the implications of the mage's reaction. But in truth, he was exasperated despite not showing it. Lucca had always been a strange friend, a trustworthy place where to rest when things turned complicated, a hand always eager to help him in discovering the Kindred's purpose, but he was an endless box of riddles and enigmas. Beckett got used of his oddness after a while, as he did so with Anatole, with his adopted Sire Aristotle de Laurent, and, in fact, with any Malkavian friend or acquaintance he had ever met. In all those cases, it required a lot of time to uncover all the patterns that some of them had. However, this was different. Mages and Malkavians had little or nothing in common, so all his experience with the latters seemed to be useless in cracking the Mages. Besides, he could not afford wasting time in dealing with more secrets, especially when they were well-known by the mage who cast him aside to keep him in the darkness of ignorance. There was not time left to taste the mysteries of life and dead.

"Please, tell me". Beckett insisted.

"It means that the universes in red are impossible to change, to save what I want. I had to erase what couldn't be saved."

Beckett looked at the teary reflex in the mage's eyes, they flickered in an intense, dangerous green. Lucca closed them tightly, as if he wanted to control a desperate power eager to be unleashed.

“I remember... you gave me a green one once, when I had had a red one for long time.” Beckett said pressing the bridge of his nose "I hardly understand anything".

"Do you trust in me?"

Beckett sighed loudly, placing his hands on the table, resting all his bodyweight on them. "I do. I would do it more eagerly if you could just explain to m-"

"Then come with me"

The mage stood up with the help of his crutches and invited him to follow. Beckett reached him as an intense smell of jasmines dragged him into old memories.

 

As soon as they stepped out from that house, Lucca stopped his walk and offered his hands to Beckett without saying a word. Beckett observed those palms, one still wearing warm flesh, while the other was closer to a silver rock, fully covered by scales encrusted in skin preventing any movement. He had inferred time ago that those scales were consequence of breaking reality, something that these humans, the mages, suffered in silence, isolated, always bordering the edges of madness and death.

Suddenly, an old memory, as ancient as he could not trust it was of his own, came to his mind. It was about a book seller, after those dark times of the Inquisition, suffering an illness that had a particular effect on his left hand. Could it be possible?. Had it been this mage as well?. He frowned. No. It was impossible. In the late 16th century he was part of the academy world, struggling alone against the generalized nonsense of that time. There were never an ill man selling books, nor a night of drinks with that strange man. He remembered that laugh, those smiles, the life boiling inside that book seller who struggled with verb tenses that had nothing to do with a supposed ignorance of the language and everything with his permanent inability to perceive time. That man that Beckett never met was not this ill, darkened man at his front. It could not be. Whose memories were those?.

"Did, do you trust in me?" Lucca repeated, as his eyes started to glow greener.

"I do".

Beckett accepted those hands and as suddenly as he touched them, he felt a rush of energy burning his inside. The Beast awoke terrified from the apparent slumber that Gehenna had put it into, and took over his body. He made an effort beyond his strength, and an ostensible calm followed making him think that he had just tame it with the last energies he had.

His consciousness awoke with a cold, gentle touch at his forehead. It was Lucca's hand casting that delightful spell of tranquillity over the Beast deep inside him. Beckett felt its effect after a couple of minutes until his maddening thirst allowed him to recognize the iron tang of blood in his mouth. Lucca's blood.

He fell on the ground, startled, as the mage grabbed his silvery shoulder where part of the cloth had been ripped, and flesh and silver scales had been torn apart. It seemed that Beckett had not handled the Beast so well after all.

He tried to apologize but the mage ignored him looking at the sky while he cast a mist. An intoxicating silvery mist.

Beckett looked around, realising they had been transported to a forest, deep into it, close to a river. The mist made difficult to see the details of the place, but at the same time it helped him to fit his blurry memory into the forms of the scenery partially covered by mist.

It was not a mere forest or any river. Slowly, as the mist covered some parts of the landscape and uncovered others, the place become familiar to Beckett and made him gasp. It was the same place where he was embraced. That terrible July 24th.

He looked at the mage who was melting away with the mist, leaving one unchangeable thing, those glowing green eyes. It was a Beast.

The memories of that night, the panic, the despair, the dreadful terror, all came back to him. Beckett felt once again that Beast, a Beast outside his body and mind, a Beast more unnatural and powerful that the one that transformed him centuries ago. A Beast that wanted to destroy Beasts.

He ran, realizing how deeply the weakness had affected him. His legs felt human, running clumsily, stumbling with stones and roots. There was not Kindred speed in his movements, much less Kindred strength. Everything felt exactly the same like that time. It was as if time mixed, entwined; future and present and past entangled in chaos and despair.

He fell on the ground, mud stained his clothes. Everything he lived so long time ago came into his mind vividly once again, every detail emerging and fusing with what was actually happening there. He screamed and, in middle of the terror, he remembered Lucca, and called his name. But silence was his only answer. Where was he?, What had happened with the ill man?.

A body fell over him and bit him in the neck. His internal Beast screamed in terror and tried to hurt the predator over him, but he could not. The withering had taken every bit of energy from him. He pushed and screamed, his body shuddered and convulsed. He smelt blood. Warm blood staining everything along his body. Was he bleeding?. After a minute, he remained still, perceiving a constant beat echoing in his head. Everything had been repeated the same. But instead of awakening, the Beast inside him died. It disappeared. He could feel it. He smiled a bit, content that, at least at the end of his un-life, he got rid of it, he could be free, for some seconds, of that curse. And with that peaceful thought, and his soul tasting freedom for the first time in centuries, he was ready for his body to become ashes. Weakened, surrendered, he let the dawn turn him into nothing while the Beast kept biting and drinking from his neck. He felt the first sunbeams burning slowly his skin, leaving a fine layer of ashes over him while the Beast over him kept dragging the last bits of vitae in his body. It was the end of that long yet interesting nightmare. He only lamented that his soul could not be saved.

 

After a moment of silence, he opened his eyes still feeling that Beast of green eyes over his chest, still biting his neck in a torturing way.

Despite the pain, he felt strong, not as usual of course, but clearly not sick. He pushed the beast, throwing it a meter away, and sat on the ground. His body which moments ago had been soaked in blood, now it was warmer and covered in ashes, as though a snake would have changed its skin and burnt it. He touched his neck, cleaning the ashes. As soon as he felt the pain of the bite he looked at his palm. There was a mixture of ashes, mud and blood. His own blood. His own, warm blood. It was not a clean bite with a couple of fangs but a messy one, with all teeth pressing and damaging his skin until bleeding. It was a clumsy bite... A human bite?

Beckett looked at the beast that was still in the ground, surrounded by thick mist that opaqued its figure and only its glowing green eyes were visible. Slowly, as the general foam disappeared and the mist around the beast discovered its figure, more and more silver stakes and overgrown silver scales become distinguishable. Until the density around the beast face was clear. More silver scales spread rapidly over the creature's left side of the face while blood kept dripping from its mouth.

Lucca.

Beckett blinked in surprise and his breathe stopped for some seconds. However, he had to resume his breathing soon again, unable to stay without air any longer. His surprise was double.

"What the hell is happening?" He said.

He knelt close to the mage, observing how the silver scales became wild, dispersing painfully over his skin without mercy and big stakes grew violently across his body. He was being impaled by his own over-dimensioned scales. The mage's legs started to dematerialize like a glitch in a screen. Not only his legs, but his whole presence was becoming more and more fleeting as the minutes passed by. Beckett lifted Lucca a bit, but the movement made him groan in pain as the scales went deeper into his muscles.

"What the hell is happening?" Beckett asked with a waving voice.

Lucca's glowing eyes met Beckett's, as sparks of green fulgor exploded around him and portions of thick mist surrounded his limbs randomly. His magic was deeply unstable now. Moaning with pain, Lucca reached Beckett's hand noticing its warmth. He could also feel Beckett's warm breathe and the unusual movement of his chest. He smiled. Finally, he did it. With enormous effort, he lifted his hand cupping Beckett's face, and widened his smile as pain and moving tears ran along his cheek.

"It was you. It was not a mistake. You... You are saved now."

"What have you done?"

"You free. Your curse. Finally lifted"

Beckett looked at him in silence, appreciating that smile but also worried by the glitches and the speed that the scales were spreading over the few parts of bare skin he could see. "I feel strange."

"Awakening is always strange" Lucca said

Several flares of green energy erupted, and Lucca's body flickered, leaving Beckett behind, alone, in middle of a forest that had been the place of his curse and now of his salvation.

Still shocked for all that had happened so quickly, he rubbed his neck, where there were the bite was done, and kept lost in his thoughts. His hands were itching, with a strange chill sensation in the tip of his fingers. He observed them for a long moment, waiting them to become like they were before, fingers deformed in claws and fur. But the only anomaly he saw was a spark that startled him.

Had he been sired once again, but this time, into... Humanity?. Another spark came from his fingers. Was this the cost he had to paid for leaving the Night and becoming a human?.

He folded his hands as if it were a pray, and closed his eyes, looking for the Beast inside him. He sought for a long time, and found nothing. The Beast was not more in the back of his mind fighting for taking control over him. Maybe there was something else, gentle and guiding, but decidedly not the Beast.

He blinked as his eyes glowed green, and a sudden revelation stroked him.

He simply had awoken.

* * *

  
**Book of Nod . Sometime.**  
**A page.**

 

_And they asked Caine the old Father,_

_"Why do you command us to not Embrace_

_those we love?”_

_And Caine said to them, "Love is the sweet rain_

_which falls down from the One Above._

_Love is the gift of life._

_Remember ye not Auriel's Curse?_

_That we are to eat only ashes, drink only blood?_

_Blood is not sweet rain. Our drink takes Life."_

_And then Caine's eyes got the look of Visions,_

_and he quieted, then he spoke:_

_"But if ever one of us_

_is gifted_

_with the love of a mortal_

_without Command_

_or Awe,_

_without compulsion_

_a Love given freely,_

_then that Love will be as_

_the gentle rain_

_to even the lowliest of us._

_And though we shall not Embrace it,_

_it will feed us as if we supped at our Father`s table_

_it will satisfy our deepest thirst._

_But barken ye, my children!_

_The Children of Seth will always hate us again and again,_

_for we are their predators_

_we are their Masters_

_and they know this. deep in their soul._

_Look not for Love among them! They will not give it._

_Be not a fool". (2)_

 

 

 


	6. Epilogue

**The beginning of The End.**

 

He breathed in then breathed out. His eyes opened, and the greenish white energy coming from his iris faded away slowly with the passing by minutes. Breathe in. Breathe out.

He could feel the stakes piercing his body. His arm was stiffen, fingers almost impossible to move, familiar feeling of thousand needles stuck into his skin. Oh, he had always been aware of the consequences of changing a world reluctant to believe. He could not complain about it. He chose his actions knowing what was at stake and knowing its cost.

He wished not to be alone in his last moments. But it was too much to ask. Be born alone, die alone. He breathed out pretending not to give importance to it, for what it mattered, this moment had to last some minutes, and then... the oblivion. The final rest. It was a bit more of pain to pay. What meant a bit more after so much suffering?

His sight focused a bit more, and shapes abandoned their blurry contours to become more defined. He startled when he distinguished they were his home's ceiling.

Now he was going to live in perpetual agony.

Why?. Why from all places in countless worlds his blink made him end in this bloody house?.

He sighed, and the same sharp pain spread over his face hit his lungs, deeply, between his ribs. He had to die. It was not a matter of choice. His pain was beyond the unbearable.

He groaned. Tears of pain jumped off from his closed tight eyes. Had he succeeded?. His mind, confused with so much torment, could not remember.

Had he prevented a fixed event?

Oh, it had been so long since he had put that naive thought in his mind. The thought that changing an impossible was worth any price. Now, laying on the floor, enduring that pain cracking every corner of his body, he could notice the doubts flying freely. Caine's words came to him to torture his already twinged mind.

_The gift of life will be consumed, you may die, or may find a worse fate. What for?. You'll be left behind, as I did with her. She was lost forever, walking along the endless path of solitude. You can't change a curse destined to be._

He could also feel the exhaustion. It was not mere tiredness but an ancient fatigue that had lasted for centuries. He could not believe how far he had reached despite everything. It had been centuries of trials and errors, of erasing mistakes, of trying to shift more or less the circumstances. But it used to have always the same outcome. Until now. There was only one world where everything could be aligned to succeed.

_There is nothing for you at the end. A damned soul has nothing to offer. And you will be left behind. As she was left behind_

He moaned. The unbearable pain digging deep in his guts, in his lungs, in his eyes.

 

For what mattered now…

Breathe in. Breath out.

And everything became dark.

 

* * *

 

_And with that, the darkness_

_was lifted_

_like a veil_

_and the only light was_

_Lilith’s bright eyes._

 

_Looking around me, I knew_

_that I had Awakened. (2)_

 

* * *

 

A cold, gentle feeling on his forehead awoke him. The first thing his eyes could see were his room ceiling then, he looked aside where he could perceive a magical presence. He squinted, still having problems to focus.

The hand was removed, leaving a wake of blue foam with its movement.

“And at last, you opened your eyes”

Lucca frowned and recognized Beckett, with a vivid skin and bright hazel eyes smirking at him. “I thought I had to sniff around all your library and try every spell on you just to keep you alive. Thankfully, this worked just fine.” He lifted a handmade book that he had opened on his lap. More than a book looked like a diary: Lucca's spell book. “I know this is kind of personal, but... you have a lot of interesting spells here, summarized and classified in a wonderful way. More efficient than looking around thousands of book while you were a cry of pain here”

Lucca gasped at the words, and tried to sit on the bed quickly. His body was hurt everywhere, but not in the agonizing way it had been. He opened his shirt to see the state of his chest, scales were covering just part of it. He had no more stakes piercing his body, and his condition seemed to have receded. He looked at his hands, the right one was flesh, and the left one had small scales on its back. Trying to check the most compromised part of his body, he bended his left leg surprised that, despite the pain and the difficult in doing so, he was able to do it.

Beyond understanding, confused, he looked at Beckett, who grasped the questions flitting around in the Mage's mind.

With a silly grin on his face, he spoke, “Well, you are the one who has to give me explanations about what happened so long time ago, in that forest...”

“Long time ago?”

“I don't know. It's been a couple years. I guess...” Beckett frowned, looking aside for a moment, to remember the dates in silence. However, it was hard to put an order to the temporal mess that the house produced. “I'm not sure. Now I know what you meant by confusion.” Beckett chuckled, patting softly on Lucca's shoulder.

“Years?” Lucca let the surprise become transparent in his face. He had been stuck in an agonizing cycle inside the house while time went by. He lay on his bed, a bit more relaxed by putting some order to his thoughts, and looked at Beckett. He extended his hand asking for Beckett's, who, a bit curious, gave it to him. Softly pulling it, Lucca pressed his fingers on Becket's wrist, and after a moment of silence, he smiled. Somehow, after so many dark times, he finally smiled, free of the pressure of failure.

“Thank you.” Beckett said with a fond smile. “But you need to teach me a lot more. My previous knowledge of thaumaturgy was enough for treating you... but I must have done something wrong.”

Lucca frowned slightly, as Beckett lifted his sleeve and showed him his forearm. Small silver scales appeared under his skin. They were few yet. Nothing serious for now.

“Stop healing me” Lucca said, and stared at Beckett. “ You will only produce more paradoxes. I'm alright. You are alive. Let's close the cycle."

Beckett smiled broadly. “You know, I had forgotten this annoyance of needing to eat every six hours. And the aftermath is less... pleasurable. In fact, there is nothing intense now..."

"Are you regretting this?. We can find some vampire that will turn you back..."

Beckett laughed, "No, no. I prefer an insipid life before returning to that nightmare. I'll live. Some complications keep things interesting."

“Where's the fun without complications, huh?” Lucca paraphrased Beckett. 

“Exactly”. 

Lucca closed his eyes with a smile on his face, tired but content, ready to rest and recover. Now, they had all the time of the world to teach and learn, to enjoy company and look for answers.

But the most warmer thought he embraced at that moment was a tiny yet marvellous one. He had not been left behind. He hadn't been.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.  
> This fic had been an annoyance during the last part of the year 2017. It was always flitting around my mind while trying to focus myself on a big big final. Now it is complete and out of my system, I'm free just to be slave yet again of another fic that has been tormenting me while writing this one. It's a terrible cycle, jaja.  
> I hope you can enjoy this silly story born from reading the Book of Nod. As usual, anyone is free to share opinions or corrections that may consider necessary. I'm always open to criticism and grammar tips. If you do not want to do it here, you can find me in my tumblr (check my profile) or simply mail me.  
> I've worked and used a lot of my free time in writing this. If you enjoyed the fic or you saw a systematic mistake, please, consider to leave a kudo or a comment through the different ways available to contact me. I would appreciate it deeply, and it could even make my day.   
> Thank you again.

**Author's Note:**

> Footnotes:
> 
> 1) Revelations of the Dark Mother, Seed from the Twilight Garden, compiled by Rachel Dolium  
> http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Revelations_of_the_Dark_Mother
> 
> 2) Book of Nod. By  Aristotle deLaurent, Beckett, and Sascha Vykos  
> http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Book_of_Nod
> 
> 3) Victorian Age Trilogy 3: The Wounded King. By Philippe Boulle.  
> http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Victorian_Age_Trilogy_3:_The_Wounded_King


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